Aug 29, 2012
The shortest scheduled flight in the world
Scottish airline Loginair holds a trivial but interesting record: It offers the shortest scheduled flight provided by any airline. Commuters may depart from the island of Westray and arrive 2 minutes later at the island of Papa Westray.
Those of us not in the Orkney Islands can enjoy the journey on YouTube…
And here’s today’s schedule for the inordinately curious…
(via MetaFilter)
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Would be even funnier (and even more pointless) if the flight used a 767 or A380…
Why not just build a bridge?
There’s like 60 people on the entire island. It’s not exactly the Florida Keys or anything. Even for Scotland, it’d be kinda hard to justify building a bridge for just 60 people.
Anyway, almost all the Orkney Islands have their own little airports. Although these two happen to be somewhat close, a lot of the others are actually quite distant from one another.
The distance from one to the other is 1.7 miles. The cost to build a bridge that far would be astronomical. For 60 people? Not feasible.
Even better are flights to Barra airport, also on a tiny Scottish island: it is the only scheduled flight in the world that lands on the *beach*. So timetables are entirely tide-dependent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barra_Airport_(Scotland)
Much faster than the Staten Island Ferry! Maybe NYC should look into little commuter planes…
“Why not just build a bridge?”
I can only hope that is a result of “too long; didn’t watch.”
A beautiful (and short) flight.
Would a ferry or some other boat make more sense?
Nope.
Ol’ Nessie might attack the boat.
that’d be like hiring an 18 wheeler to drive 2 or 3 people. this is a rare instance where an airplane is actually the most cost effective choice (unless you feel like rowing).
Wonder what they charge for that short 2-minute flight? Anyone Know?
bout tree fiddy
http://www.loganair.co.uk/xtra_files/OrkneyFares.pdf
and I had to go thru security for THAT???
More accurate than a slingshot. Now I want to go there!