I've flown as a fare paying passenger on a BEA One-Eleven the 43 miles between Manchester and Blackpool.

But I'm sure there are much shorter than that.

BA will have routinely positioned aircraft between LHR and LGW, probably as a schedule in their operating timetable, but there's no way they would have sold seats on it.

British Eagle BAC 1-11
 

The shortest one I ever remember was in the late sixties and was from Chester (Hawarden) to Liverpool. Took about 4 minutes on a British Eagle 1-11 and was charged out at (I think) ten shillings.

5:40am Depart Victoria BC CA (YYJ) Arrive Vancouver BC CA (YVR) 6:10am Air Canada 230 0h30m Airbus 320 Daily

39nm.

I've just seen an old plan for last week on my desk: Tobago - Grenada in a 747......76 miles
32 min block

We used to do Malmo - Copenhagen. I did it once in 7 minutes (took off from 17 at Malmo and joined right base for 30 at Kastrup).

""The shortest one I ever remember was in the late sixties and was from Chester (Hawarden) to Liverpool. Took about 4 minutes on a British Eagle 1-11 and was charged out at (I think) ten shillings.""

I think these flights were flown by Viscounts. British Eagle did, however, fly LPL-MAN-FRA for a while, though I am not sure if you could book for just the first sector.

A few years back Saudia and Gulf Air flew 737s from Dhahran to Bahrain, before the fixed link causeway. That was only about 10-15 minutes depending on routing, generally at just a few thousand feet.

"A few years back Saudia and Gulf Air flew 737s from Dhahran to Bahrain, before the fixed link causeway. That was only about 10-15 minutes depending on routing, generally at just a few thousand feet."

Distance about 22miles & usually at 2500ft (1970's when I worked Bahrain Tower & Bahrain Centre). The Saudia equipment was 737s. The GF services were charters for Brown & Root if I remember correctly and were usually either FK27s or Beech Queen Airs. Dhahran - Bahrain was also a VC10 sector for BOAC en-route from London. I flew on it once, but don't recall where it went after Bahrain.
RC

Flybe use 146s Jersey to Guernsey

Technically its not a schedule because it is/was a triangle route and i dont think people got on in Jersey to fly to Guernsey.

Pretty damn short though!

Our company regularly flies to Skiathos (JSI) during the summer and due to the short runway there we have to stop en-route and re-fuel to make home. Our stop is Volos (VOL) and the record that I have heard is 10 minutes airborne but the usual is just shy of 20. V3

Midland used to run a service from Heathrow to Birmingham in the early 90's, but I don't think it ran for long, and I think Easyjet still do a Luton to Liverpool.

louby

Air Tanzania
 

Scheduled service between Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam- Happens daily

40NM they use a 737-200, there also uesd to be a company that used a F-28to do the same run.

Cebu to Bacolod is a very short flight - it seemed that air time was about 20 minutes.


I don't know what the distance is but the alternate to air travel is to take a ferry.

Back in 1976 I flew on a scheduled Eastern Airlines DC-9 flight from Fort Lauderdale to Miami. Just over 22 miles. Was airborne for 9 minutes. Earlier in the day I'd done MIA-FLL on a DC-3 in 10 minutes.

Circa 1984, Dan Air used to operate BRS-CWL (IIRC), with the 146.

The full diagram was (deep breath)

NCL-MME-AMS-BRS-CWL-JER-GCI-CWL-BRS-AMS-MME-NCL

r

By no means the shortest in the world, but Ryanair Prestwick-City of Derry is 93nm.

Piedmont Airlines once operated a Martin 404 on a leg KORF-KPHF (Norfolk to Newport News - 20 nm).

FA's advised the SLF that this was a nonstop flight. :}

JW411:
And, of course, Kastrup is actually considerably closer to the city of Malmo than Malmo airport is - and quicker too with the new(ish) bridge and train service.

It doesn't count of course because not fare-paying, but the first flights of the glorious Vickers hardware out of Weybridge to Wisley for subsequent kit-out and testing was less a flight, more a ballistic lob - just under 2.5 nautical miles from lift-off to touchdown! I was lucky to have witnessed a couple of RAF VC10s doing that with water injection to get them off the very short Weybridge runway - rather fun and certainly a challenge for the ears.....

Only just found this site . . .
 

Hi,

I've only just found this site due to doing a search about the Westray/Papa Westray flight. I remember doing it on a very wet day over 26 years ago - in the days when the runway was grass - and there were other hazards in the form of grazing cows if my memory serves me correctly. I've even got my ticket stashed away somewhere.


That's my shortest flight - the longest I've made has been Moscow (Sheremyentovo) to Khabarovsk in what was at the time the Soviet Far East. 6 hours without seeing the sea. It was in an IL-62.

Ron

US Airways 1833 737-400 BWI to PHL, 89 miles. 16 minutes in the air on 24 Apr 2007. That is probably an error, since today's flight took 25 minutes and FlightAware shows it took about the best routing possible. Flown at 9000 ft altitude.

Recent days were reported at between 16 and 31 minutes.

The flight continues from PHL to Nassau, Bahamas.

A bit more of a flight than that as the runway at Weybridge is north/south whereas Wisley is east/west, so an interesting ballistic track surely :)

In passing, most weeks there is a return-to-departure-point of some sort at Heathrow, where a 27L departure say returns to 27R, total distance achieved about 1 mile, with pax on board. Not that they knew it when they departed.