Burj Khalifa lifts have travelled distance to the moon

In the five years since the Burj Khalifa - the world’s tallest building - opened, the lifts leading to At the Top, the world’s highest observatory deck, have travelled the distance from the earth to the moon.

Lifts leading to At the Top have now travelled the same distance from the earth to the moon, since the 828 metre skyscraper opened five years ago. Sarah Dea / The National
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DUBAI // The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, has notched up another milestone.

Lifts leading to At the Top, the world’s highest observatory deck, have now travelled the same distance from the earth to the moon, since the 828 metre skyscraper opened five years ago.

The two observation lifts travel 124 floors to the open-air platform and, until now, have covered 384,400 kilometres between them.

On average, both lifts travel 244.4km a day.

It has been calculated that between January and March this year, the first observation lift did 49,833 runs, covering 21,329km, while the second did 52,939 runs, equivalent to 22,658km.

The lifts are run by Otis, the world’s largest manufacturer and maintainer of people-moving products, and part of UTC Building and Industrial Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

“United Technologies is proud to see its advanced Otis technology enable the world’s tallest building to continue to reach new milestones,” said vice president Rolando Furlong.

The Burj Khalifa holds seven Guinness World Records, including those for the world’s highest observatory deck, At the Top, the world’s tallest building and the world’s tallest man-made structure.

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