This Is The Shortest Airplane Flight Route In The World

We often associate flying with longer-distance travel across countries or whole continents. In the United States, motorists typically aren't afraid of lengthy drives. In fact, Frontier Group Associate Director and Senior Policy Analyst Tony Dutzik dubs U.S. drivers "freakish outlier(s) when it comes to the number of miles we drive in our cars and trucks." With that in mind, short-distance flights might seem a strange phenomenon.

Nonetheless, there are a huge number of different flight routes criss-crossing the globe, serving personal and business needs of every sort. The very shortest of all regularly scheduled flights covers a rather remote region of the north of Scotland, the beautiful Orkney and its associated islands. According to Aviation Week Network, via OAG Schedules Analyser, the flight between the islands of Westray to Papa Westray is operated by Loganair and covers a mere 1.7 miles.

This flight is offered for £18.50 (just under $25), standard economy pricing, though can be taken for as little as £8 (approximately $10.78). Loganair notes that the latter is "Excursion" pricing and specifies a "return trip with one night minimum stay required at destination." Some wonderful Scottish inventions have helped shape the modern world, and anyone who takes this flight will see that the country's reputation for remote, rugged, stunning landscapes is well-deserved too.

Flying to Papa Westray, with a current population of approximately 90 people, certainly doesn't involve boarding one of the hefty airliners many commercial flyers will be accustomed to. Instead of the likes of the iconic Airbus A320 passenger jet, travelers will instead fly on a ten-seater Loganair Islander. In a very nice touch, those who make this record-breakingly brief trip are given a certificate to tell the world that they took the world's shortest scheduled commercial flight. All Papa Westray's 90 inhabitants are sure to be duly impressed. Those who don't want to fly (not even for this 90-second hop) can instead take a ferry to Papa Westray, operated by Orkney Ferries. The company's Westray & Papa Westray route takes travelers between Pierowall and Papa Westray, a journey of approximately 20-25 minutes.

For a slightly longer flight, Aviation Week Network notes that the journey between Kinshasa and Brazzaville (Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo, respectively) is a jaunt of 15 miles. To really put the briefness of this scenic Scottish sojourn in perspective, though, here's something incredible: The longest commercial flight route on the planet is (at the time of writing) an 18 hour and 40 minute odyssey that takes travelers to/from JFK and Singapore Changi Airport. The direct distance between the two is 9,542 miles, but the aircraft itself can cover around 10,720 miles on the journey.