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The world's longest and shortest flights
Because you're just apoplectic to find out how you can maximize your time on an airplane, right? We covered this a while back, but things keep changing: planes keep getting bigger, stronger, and faster, routes change based on demand and somehow, we keep increasing our tolerance for being locked up and pressurized like pringles in a can. Fortunately, the world's many airline nerds have already done the technical legwork--we just had to fact check:- At present, the world's longest non-stop commercial flight is Singapore Airlines SQ21 from Newark Liberty (EWR) to Singapore Changi International (SIN) clocking in at a whopping 18 hours 50 minutes! Thankfully, the huge all-business-class Airbus A340-500 and world-famous in-flight service makes the halfway-around-the-world jaunt from New Jersey quite bearable. (In that same time, you could drive from Newark to Kansas City.)
- The world's shortest regularly-scheduled, non-stop commercial flight is on Scotland's Loganair, from the island of Westray (WRY) to Papa Westray (PSV) in the Orkney Islands, clocking in at a meager 2 minutes (so I'm guessing there's no beverage service).There are plenty of other super short commercial flights all over the world, mostly inter-island and commuter connections. The Caribbean's LIAT flight between the islands of St. Kitt's (SKB) and Nevis (NEV) is scheduled at 15 minutes long but rarely takes more than 5 minutes from take-off to landing.
Filed under: Asia, Europe, North America, Singapore, United Kingdom, St. Kitts & Nevis, United States, Airlines, Transportation, Travel Trivia, Caribbean
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Khoa Huynh Jul 12th 2010 2:13PM
The Singapore Airlines A380 does not fly from Singapore to Newark. That route is served exclusively by the A340-500 in an all business-class 100-seat configuration.
Andrew Evans Jul 12th 2010 2:16PM
Thanks for the info Khoa Huynh! Duly noted!
Malaycobra Jul 12th 2010 4:00PM
We used to fly from Dharan International Airport in Saudi Arabia to Manama International Airport in Bahrain to pick up flights home to London. If it was 15 minutes from throttle up to brakes on I'd be surprised. We were told it was the worlds shortest international flight. It took longer for everyone to get seated that the whole flight.
Will Jul 14th 2010 3:59PM
I thought the non-stop from Hawaii to DFW in TX was long.
ozFinn Jul 15th 2010 6:16AM
Nearly 19 hours... Sheesh, I thought that the 14 or so hours from Sydney to Vancouver was bad!
On the flip side, a later flight on the trip from Cincinnati to Dayton that was scheduled to take an hour had us in the air for all of 12 minutes!
Kent Wien Jul 31st 2010 3:18PM
Hi Andrew,
I used to fly a Twin Otter from Tununak to Toksook in Alaska that were 6.6 miles apart. You could easily walk it, since it was all over land. I'm not sure if it's still in service.
Here's a map showing both villages:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=60.551541,-165.158501&spn=0.148705,0.405807&t=h&z=12