Shortest B747 scheduled route?
 

Following on from the BA 747 thread, I have been told by a travel agent friend that the Lufthansa FRA-TLV (Tel Aviv) route is their most profitable.

The reasons are that they fly a B747-400 and a A340-600 fly each day seven days a week. My experience of these flights is that they are pretty full all year round.

So is this the shortest scheduled large wide body route (about 1800 miles I think)? Or are there shorter routes - and would they be more profitable?

Not sure if they still fly 747s internally in Japan. Certainly used to - Okinawa/Tokyo - distance of under 1000 miles.

BCal/Sabena used to have a joint 747 service Brussels-Gatwick-Atlanta. I've flown the BRU-LGW leg. There must be shorter than that, though. I seriously doubt it was profitable.

Purely from a fuel cost point of view, a 747 would be optimised for a distance of about 5500km. Longer than that fuel burn per km rises very slightly due to ‘burning fuel to carry fuel’. Shorter than that, unit fuel burn increases strongly with decreasing sector length. But revenue yields are almost certainly going to affect the economics more than unit costs.

Highland Express had Prestwick to Birmingham on G-HIHO back in 1987.

Philippine Airlines use the 747-400 and A340 on it's Manila - Cebu domestic route (305 nautical miles). PR 849, PR 853.

Cathay use the 747 daily on the Hong Kong - Manila route, 600nm. I'm sure there are other instances of the 747 on shorthaul routes in Asia and the Middle East.

Some Bangkok - Phuket flights on (I think) Thai were booked 747 last year when I was investigating options...

I have flown BKK - HKT and vice versa in a 747-400 many times. It is 428 miles and takes about an hour and ten minutes.

I went on Wardair Manchester to prestwick and the onwards to Toronto back in the eighties, not sure but the mileage Manchester to Prestwick cant be that far. Didnt they also do something like Leeds- Birmingham - Toronto?

Philippines also use the 747 on Manila to Davao which is domestic. Not as short as the Cebu route though.

How about Bahrain-Doha, about 70 nm straight line distance. BA124/125 operates this route as a through runner to and from LHR. Over recent years the route seems to have alternated between the 747 and 777. Right now its the 777, but looks like the 747 again next summer. BA used to have traffic rights between these points years ago but I have no idea if this is still the case.

Difference between a run-on 'hop' sector, as opposed to the main (or only) sector. Returning from Mo Bay to LHR in the late 80s, our 742 (I think) hopped to Kingston and then home. The hop was about 12 minutes I think.

Back in the mid 1990's Malaysian and Singapore Airways used to operate a shuttle service between KL and Singapore. Malaysian offered almost an hourly service using a 737 but the SQ service was less regular and would use a 747. The route is about 220 miles.

JAL used to use (maybe still do) a 747 for a Tokyo to Osaka shuttle service.

As I recall, radeng, due to the low level of baggage, they could use a super high density Y seating layout? I seem to recall 500 pax or more???

I can recall my first B747 flight was Brussels-Amsterdam in 1971 with Pan Am. Also flew Amsterdam-LHR with Air India and Amsterdam-Copenhagen with Japan Air Lines.

Korean Air are running a B744 between the Island of Jeju, and Gimpo. Using "Google Earth" that's a distance of approx. 244nm and is about 50 mins airborne.

JAL used to have a fleet of B747D (Domestic), they didn't have winglets, and had high density seating, and were used for internal flights in Japan. Some of those would have been quite short sectors.

These extremely short flights on B747s and A340s must put some additional stress on the airframe such that the planes run out of sectors before they run out of hours. Would that be right?

And if so, how would you reuse a B747 which might be only say 12 years old, but has carried out the same number of sectors as a 20 year old BA or Lufthansa B747?

JAL Osaka Flight
 

I've been on that flight and I believe the capacity of the 747SR was 523. And every seat was occupied on the flight I took. VERY high density and small seat pitch.

Didn't Aer Lingus do Dublin-Shannon then onwards to JFK a few years back on a 747? Can't be much more than a 100 miles?

Thai Airways regulary use the 747 on domestic flights ( mainly Chiang Mai and Phuket ) duirng the big holidays.