Wellington Airport has been graced by the longest aircraft ever to land on its short runway this morning.
Air New Zealand’s new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft landed at around 10:45am and taxied to gate 23 for the day.
The purpose of the stopover is to preview the brand new aircraft to the public and to Wellington Airport and Air New Zealand staff.
The aircraft, which is being introduced to replace Air New Zealand’s 747-400 fleet, features the new economy skycouch and premium economy seats.
It will fly international routes from Auckland to London via Los Angeles
The plane is 64.8 metres long and features the world’s most powerful jet engines.
Wellington’s runway is only 1.8km long and the 777-300ER usually needs a runway of nearly twice that when taking off with its maximum weight of 351 tonnes.
Wellington Airport says the plane will have no passengers when it takes off meaning the short runway length will not be a problem.
The last big aircraft to land in Wellington was an Airbus A340-300 which was chartered by the Bahrain football team when they played the All Whites in November 2009.
That plane was 1.3 metres shorter than Air New Zealand’s plane landing in Wellington today.
In the 1980s, Qantas operated a 747-SP on its trans-Tasman route from Wellington but the aircraft was only 55 metres in length.
The plane will leave this afternoon at 3:30pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment