World’s shortest commercial flight lasts around a minute
- The world’s shortest commercial flight spends takes about a minute
- It flies between the Orkney Islands of Westray and Papa Westray
- It has a record time of just 53 seconds
Published on Oct 26, 2024 at 12:00 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Oct 22, 2024 at 11:02 AM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
The world’s shortest commercial flight takes just 90 seconds, with the actual flying time lasting around one minute.
The super-short flight has been running since 1967 and set a record for the world’s shortest scheduled flights.
The flight goes between the Orkney Islands of Westray and Papa Westray in northern Scotland.
The route has been operated by Scottish regional airline Loganair since it was introduced.
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The shortest commercial flight has a record flight time of 53 seconds
Back in 1943, a Qantas flight – dubbed ‘Double Sunrise’ – took a staggering 32 hours and nine minutes to travel from Australia to Ceylon, which is modern-day Sri Lanka, setting the record for the world’s longest commercial flight.
Now more than 80 years later, that record still stands.
On the other side of the coin is the Loganair flight between Westray to Papa Westray – an area separated by a small strip of land.
Including runway time, the flight takes around a minute and a half, with around one minute of that spent in the air.
However, the record for the fastest-ever flight on the route is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 53 seconds.
That record was set by pilot Stuart Linklater, who flew the route more than 12,000 during his career.
The plane on the route has room for eight passengers
The distance traveled is just 2.7km (1.7 miles), which is about the same length as the runway at Edinburgh Airport.
Loganair uses two Britten-Norman BN2B-26 Islander aircraft for the route, which can carry up to eight passengers, as well as the pilot.
The design of the plane means there’s typically an empty seat beside the pilot.
Flights run daily in both directions, except on Saturdays when there are only flights going from Westray to Papa Westray and Sundays when it’s the reverse.
The flight is essential for the 90 or so residents of Papa Westray; the route is also popular with students and teachers who head over to the island to check out its many historical sites.
The route is also covered by a ferry, which takes around 25 minutes or the same amount of time as 16.6 journeys on the plane.
Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Across her career she's covered a wide variety of topics, including celebrity, cryptocurrency, politics, true crime and just about everything in between.
