A380 for Antarctica flight-seeing trips

Melbourne-based Antarctica Sightseeing Flights has organised a New Year's Eve trip to Antarctica.
Using a Qantas Airbus A380 super-jumbo, it will be the first commercial flight by the aircraft over the south polar region and will fly passengers in figure-eight patterns above the ice for up to four hours before heading back to Melbourne and Sydney. The trip will take just over 11 hours and cover some 9,500 kilometres.
On a typical Antarctica sightseeing flight, the first icebergs are seen approximately three hours after passing over Hobart. The most frequently-used route then takes the aircraft over the polar icecap, the South Magnetic Pole, the French scientific base at Dumont d'Urville, coastal cliffs, glaciers and finally the Trans-Antarctic Range before returning to Australia.
Two other Antarctic flights are also planned for the southern summer; a second A380 service will fly direct from Sydney on 24th January and a Boeing 747-400 from Melbourne on 14th February.