A charter flight dispatched to rescue stranded cruise passengers has returned to Europe after a long nonstop flight from Hawaii to Germany.
Norwegian Jewel, a massive 15-year-old cruise ship, had about 2,000 guests and 1,000 crewmembers onboard when it received word to abort its journey through the South Pacific. After stopping in the American Samoa to refuel, it docked in Honolulu, Hawaii earlier this week.
Norwegian dispatched a 747-400 charter from Wamos Air to get stranded Europeans home. The flight, operated by EC-MQK, Honolulu at 2:45 PM on Tuesday and arrived into Frankfurt at 11:27AM on Wednesday before continuing to Madrid. HNL-FRA is 7,450 miles.
Even more impressive, the Spanish charter made the 7,871 mile journey from Madrid to Honolulu nonstop.
We’re seeing interesting flights pop up all over the world as countries work to bring their citizens home during this time of quarantine. Air Tahiti Nui recently flew nonstop from Pape’ete, French Polynesia to Paris, a journey of 9,765 miles (and now the record holder for world’s longest nonstop flight). Qantas is also operating nonstop service between Darwin and London this week.
CONCLUSION
My business partner and I love Honolulu and Frankfurt…two of our favorite cities. We’ve always joked that it is a shame that Lufthansa does not offer nonstop service between FRA and HNL. Well, it wasn’t Lufthansa, but that direct link has finally happened.
Hopefully everyone made it home safely…
image: Anna Zvereva
Quit with the annoying popups in the corner.
Do those come up every time you visit the site? They are only supposed to pop up your first visit.
They’ve appeared on every visit on every page for me today.
I’m sorry. I’ll ask the folks on Boarding Area because that should not be the case.
Me too. Annoying as hell.
The queen (747) to the rescue !
Mileage like that will really put posterior endurance to the test.
‘Finally’? I guess you missed the Lufthansa charters a few years back.
Yes, I did.
This plane landed a couple of hours here in Guatemala, it’s still here, I assume it came to bring Spanish people back home.
Do you work for Grant Thornton?
No, I’m actually from Guatemala, born and raised here; I’m an aviation geek and have the blessing to live in a high rise with an awesome view of the runway! (These days it’s looking so sad, though).
Ralph Lauren gives 10 million donation.
You know who is conspicuously missing? The billionaire who hasn’t donated even a million.
MAD-HNL empty isn’t very impressive. Delta flew a 330 from SIN-ATL empty. Amazing how far a plane can travel with no load.
I cruised on the Norwegian Jewel to Alaska in July. Great crew, shoutout to Raphael! Hope all crew and passengers arrive home safely.