HONG KONG, CHINA — China claims it has flown its first commercial flight to Antarctica carrying 22 tourists. <br />The trip consisted of a 15-hour flight from Hong Kong to South Africa, refueling in Cape Town and then another 5.5 hours to Antarctica. <br />After reaching Antarctica, it was another five to six hours to the South Pole, where the plane landed on a 1.5-mile long runway carved into the ice, the BBC reported. <br /> <br />The Chinese tour operator claims Chinese tourists no longer have to book through foreign agencies. <br /> <br />Although the trip from Cape Town onwards is actually organized and run by tour operator White Desert. White Desert regularly flies trips to the pole. <br />So in reality, the Chinese are running the tours in cooperation with other foreign agencies. <br /> <br />Chinese tourists now make up the second largest group of tourists to the eighth continent, second only to U.S. tourists. <br />The number of Chinese tourists in Antarctica has grown from 100 in 2008 to 3,944 in 2016.
