Kerry left from New Zealand after being held up for about a day by bad weather. Kerry and his entourage left the Christchurch airport at 6 am aboard a C-17 Globemaster military cargo plane and landed in Antarctica about 11 am.
Kerry, an experienced pilot, spent much of the flight in the cockpit of the huge jet, chatting with the pilots. After a smooth trip of about five hours, the group landed on the Pegasus Ice Runway, the strip of ice that serves McMurdo. The large base is the hub for US operations.
In Antarctica, Kerry's plans called for his entourage to transfer immediately at the airstrip to a smaller military transport plane for a three-hour flight to the research station the US government operates near the South Pole. Kerry planned to visit that station for about two hours before returning to McMurdo for the night.
He planned to return to New Zealand tomorrow for meetings with Prime Minister John Key. He plans to fly next week to the Middle East for talks, and then onward to a global climate conference in Morocco, where he will give a major speech.