someone probably asked the question before?

which is the current longest non-stop (or stopover) commercial flight? also the shortest flight? in both distance and time?

Shortest --

From http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/014072.html (thanks, Shareholder): Etc.. etc... (note that this is Star Alliance only)

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infinitive, d*** it, I split it so that it will stay split."
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[This message has been edited by gleff (edited 09-02-2002).]

US's shortest current is Newport News to Norfolk (ORF PHF) at 23 miles. I flew them once Plattsburgh NY to Burlington VT (last of a 5 leg trip) and I seem to remember it was 21 miles. It was straight across the lake, and took 8 minutes takeoff to touchdown.

I seem to remember from my childhood reading in Guiness that there was a flight between some English/Scotish/Welsh islands that was 2 or 3 minutes.

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OK. my curiosity was piqued:

Westray to Papa Westray, Orkney Islands, northern Scotland - "just under 2 minutes" flying time.

More trivia buried in the back of my mind - I seem to recall NY-Johanesburg as the longest flight, but also recall reading an article not too long ago that the opening of additional Russian airspace will allow NY-HK, which will be longer. 16 hrs is the legal limit, so they are probably both near that limit.

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Ain't Google great:

NY - Johanesburg - 13,568 km
NY - Hong Kong - 13,580 km

Both at 15:40 in time.

United claims the longest, as JFK - HK is longer than Continental's Newark - HK

[This message has been edited by CPRich (edited 09-02-2002).]

[This message has been edited by CPRich (edited 09-02-2002).]

I have flown on Aurigney Airways from Jersey to Alderney. They also fly from Guernsey to Alderney which is about 20 miles.

UA used to fly SFO-OAK in the 80's. Continental Express flies from HOU-IAH.

I seem to recall it was once possible to take an airliner from Oakland, California to San Francisco. That would be about 11 miles. On American Airlines website, you can book a flight from LAX to SNA (John Wayne Orange County). That computes to 36 miles. The flight does include beverage service, but no bistro bag.

One of the shortest: Continental Express IAH-EFD is 26mi

The longest: Continental EWR-HKG is 8065mi

QF once fly a 747-400 non-stop from LHR to SYD (10,573 miles), but that was not a commercial flight. It was a demonstration publicity stunt to announce the delivery of their first 744 aircraft. Needless to say there were very few people on board.

I beleive the longest flight is

South African JNB-JFK with a fuel stopover in the Cape Verde Islands

shortest --

11.3 miles to be exact.

Seehttp://www.webflyer.com/ (MileMarker)

When I worked for UA SFORR in 1985-87, there was always an early morning eastbound flight from OAK which had overnighted at the SFO operations base, and an incoming westbound flight to OAK arriving just before 1800 that continued on to SFO. Does UA still do that?

Regardless, NW Airlink (Pacific Island Aviation) has UA beat by half a mile at 10.8 miles:

SPN-TIQ

My family and I flew over a dozen flights to Tinian at the end of 2001 for the NW 2500-mile online booking bonus on the Shorts 360. (Separate PNRs, of course.) Unfortunately, post-9/11 frequency dropped to weekend-only through year-end. The actual distance between the closest parts of the islands is only three miles. The World War II invasion of Tinian was the only amphibious assault to include land-based artillery.

Westray and Papa Westray do not show up on the FlyerTalk Airport Code Lookup.

While hypertechnically one could pay an Alaskan air taxi bush pilot to ferry you across a lake and it would be "commercial," I think given the forum we should limit ourselves to landing sites with airport codes and carriers with airline codes. Perhaps even a regular schedule?

Remember when PA had the helicopter from the top of a building in Manhattan to JFK, for First Class transatlantic connections? What was the "airport" code? That was the shortest flight in UA's computer reservation system while I worked in the industry.

And consistent with this forum, PA gave miles for the flight!

(HOU - IAH is 23.3 miles.)

Does anyone service this route?

Continental

They offer it so that their pax don't have to drive all the way to IAH

WRY and PPW respectively.

You need a better code reference. Try this one:

http://www.mapping.com/airportcodes.html


Appears to be 6N4

I flew both JNB-JFK and JFK-ATL-JNB and I remember that it was funny that I made a connection from NY-Atlanta when NY was about 500 miles closer to J-burg than Atlanta. I cannot remember the number of miles I was credited with, but according to the FT mile marker, ATL-JNB is 13,600 km. That may be the longest flight. The FT mile marker says that JFK-JNB is only 12,800 km. I dont know. At least when I went, ATL-JNB was a route on South African Airways, who is a partner with DL - that is why they connect in ATL.

Time-wise, that is probably true, if you count the continuous time. It took about 17+ hours including the fuel stopover in Cape Verde. Passengers were permitted to get off the plane, but I did not. The jet streams make this flight take longer than the return trip and the return trip does not require the fuel stopover.