page_title: Tourism in Antarctica
section_title: Scenic flights
hierarchical_section_title: Tourism in Antarctica / Scenic flights
caption_attribution_description: English: BT-67 Basler owned by the Antarctic Logistics Centre International and user for tourist flights in Antarctica. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, December 2009.
context_page_description: Tourism in Antarctica started by the sea in the 1960s. Air overflights of Antarctica started in the 1970s with sightseeing flights by airliners from Australia and New Zealand, and were resumed in the 1990s. The tour season lasts from November to March. Most of the estimated 14,762 visitors to Antarctica from 1999–2000 were on sea cruises. During the 2009 to 2010 tourist season, over 37,000 people visited Antarctica.
context_section_description: Most scenic flights to Antarctica have been organised from Australia and New Zealand, with airlines from both countries commencing flights in February 1977. The majority of the flights are simple return trips, and in no cases have they landed in Antarctica.
  Air New Zealand's first scenic flight took place on 15 February 1977 and was followed by five more that year, then four each in 1978 and 1979. The flights were operated with McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s and departed from Auckland, flying over Ross Island to McMurdo Sound before returning to Auckland with a fuel stop in Christchurch. Later flights flew down the middle of the Sound and over Scott Base rather than over Ross Island as the aircraft could descend to a low altitude to provide better visibility for passengers. Many flights carried experienced Antarctic researchers as guides, including on at least one occasion Sir Edmund Hillary, and lasted roughly 12 hours with approximately four of them over or near the Antarctic mainland. Air New Zealand cancelled and never resumed their Antarctic flying programme in the aftermath of the TE901 disaster, where a route planning error lead to the aircraft crashing into Mount Erebus on 28 November 1979 with the loss of all 257 lives aboard.
  Qantas operated its first Antarctic flight on 13 February 1977, a charter organised by Sydney entrepreneur Dick Smith. By 1979 twenty-seven flights had carried more than 7,000 passengers. Most used Boeing 747-200Bs and flew from Sydney, Melbourne or Perth on one of two “ice” routes. One went along the coast of George V Land to the French base in Adele Land then back over the South Magnetic Pole. The other went over Oates Land and northern Victoria Land to Cape Washington in the Ross Dependency. In 1977 one flight duplicated Air New Zealand's routing and overflew McMurdo Sound and Mount Erebus. Some shorter flights from Melbourne were also operated by Boeing 707s. Qantas also cancelled its Antarctic programme after the TE901 disaster but eventually resumed it in 1994, and continues to operate charter flights in summer from Sydney, Perth and Melbourne to this day with Boeing 747-400s.
  There have also been earlier scenic overflights, including some from Chile in 1958.
caption: A Basler BT-67 owned by Antarctic Logistics Centre International and used for tourist flights in Antarctica, at the South Pole in December 2009
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