Greatest Flights – World’s Shortest Commercial Flight

Here’s a look at another of the world’s greatest flights – a new series about trips you can make on a commercial airliner today which have great appeal to enthusiasts, or other significant reasons for taking them.

This post is about the world’s shortest commercial flight, between Westray and Papa Westray, in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland.

The distance between the two airports is 1.7 miles (2.8km), and flights are operated by Loganair currently with a Britten-Norman Islander aircraft.

To date the record flight time between the two airports is around 50 seconds, although the schedule allows a generous two minutes (including taxi time) to get to your destination. It all depends on the wind conditions and runway direction in use.

Here’s a video of the flight as seen from a camera on the aircraft’s wing.

Along with the world’s only commercial beach runway at Barra, Scotland is a great place for flying adventures. Whilst the flight between Westray and Papa Westray certainly doesn’t give you long to enjoy the experience, it is certainly up there in world’s greatest flights.