Want to take an airplane trip that is shorter than a flight attendant’s safety instructions? The shortest scheduled flight in the world takes two minutes. Don’t even try to use the bathroom on this flight.
The flight takes place from Westray to Papa Westray on the Orkney Islands in Scotland. The distance for the entire flight is 1.7 miles (2.7 km) and is scheduled at two minutes in length from takeoff to landing. Sometimes the flight can take under a minute when the winds are blowing just right.
The cost of a one-way flight as of this writing is £17 ($21.11 US), and a round trip ticket for one leg is £7.25 ($9 US) with a return leg cost at the same price. But the return flight back to Westray from Papa Westray takes a bit longer. This flight involves a connection through Kirkwall, Scotland, which is 28 miles (45 km) south of Westray and Papa Westray. The time for each leg, from Papa Westray to Kirkwall and Kirkwall to Westray, is 15 minutes.
The flight has been continuously operated by Loganair, a Scottish regional airline, since 1967. The aircraft used for the short flight is a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander, a regional airliner and light-utility aircraft manufactured in the United Kingdom. Loganair operates two daily flights from Westray to Papa Westray, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. One flight is flown on Sunday.
One Loganair pilot named Stuart Linklater flew the route more than 12,000 times before he retired in 2013. He flew more than 1.3 million miles in the Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander during his 24 years of employment with Loganair. Linklater even holds the record for the fastest flight between the islands at 53 seconds.
The full, short flight here.
