World’s shortest commercial flight

[Brian Battuello]

The pilot, in his briefing, welcomed us to our "transatlantic" flight.

Does that qualify for free drinks?

 

[SwedeC]

We took Aer Arann Islands in Ireland for their 8-minute flight from Connemora to the island. The first flight on Saturday is at 0900, return flight departs at 0915.

https://aerarannislands.ie/the-islands/

 

[BCL]

I wonder why they don't use some kind of turboprop instead of a 737?

I don't know much about boats, except that for a few specialized types they are in an entirely different class from airplanes.

What's the question about? It's a little hard to follow without a quote.

However, a lot of these short-haul flights really just connect somewhere else. OAK-SFO was really SFO-OAK-DEN or DEN-OAK-SFO.

Years ago, American Airlines announced service between San Jose and Osaka. Only they had issues with the runway length at SJC (it's since been lengthened) and a full load of passengers/cargo/fuel. So they would fly to SFO (no passengers taken on) where they would take a full fuel load before proceeding to Japan.

 

[basketmaker]

Not near this short, but quite a few years ago a Hawaii Airlines flight had an in-air fuselage failure in which a large chunk of the top of the fuselage came off. The plane managed to land with the only fatality being a flight attendant whose body was never found. It was determined that due to the short duration of most of their flights, (distances between islands are relatively small) the large number of landing and takeoff cycles proportionate to total flying time resulted in accelerated body metal fatigue, which is normally taken as being a function of hours in the air.

(EDIT) See West Point's corrections below. My statements were from what appears to be a rather incomplete memory. At one point I read the NTSB report, and high takeoff/landing frequency relative to total flight hours was mentioned. Recall seeing a picture. "Great big convertible" was exactly what it looked like. That the pilot was able to bring this thing into a landing was somewhere between astounding and miraculous. Consider what this change did to the aerodynamics of the plane, plus what was the damage to the tail when it was impacted, as it most certainly would have been by the fuselage pieces? It is amazing this did not simply crash.

It was actually an Aloha Airlines B737.

 

[Seaboard92]

Here are the shortest of the American Airlines Flights.

1. Philadelphia-Allentown: 55 Miles. Granted I can't find a date I can book that now so we might have cancelled it. This one would make more sense for a commuter train to be honest but we pulled the tracks up.

2. Chicago ORD-Milwaukee: 67 Miles operated by Envoy. Probably cheaper to put people on the Hiawatha as a codeshare.

3. Greenville/Spartanburg, SC-Charlotte, NC: 76 Miles. Could we please just replace this flight with a train service on the Charlanta corridor and codeshare it with AA at Charlotte. I've worked this one a few times.

4. Greensboro, NC-Charlotte: 82 Miles. Could we just extend the Piedmont down to the airport and cancel these flights already. And I've worked this one too.

5. Philadelphia-Harrisburg: 83 Miles. Operated by Piedmont. Makes more sense to just extend a Keystone out to the airport in Philly.

6. Dallas/Fort Worth-Waco: 89 Miles. Operated by Envoy

7. Columbia, SC-Charlotte: 89 Miles. Another one that makes more sense as a train. I've even flown on a mainline aircraft on this one.

8. Philadelphia-Baltimore: 90 Miles. Another one I can't book so it might be no longer be a flight. Again use a train for this.

9. Asheville-Charlotte: 92 Miles. I've worked this one a lot recently but it's one where you can't really replace it with a train easily thanks to the mountains and the railroad geography of the state of North Carolina.

10. Philadelpia-JFK: 94 miles. Again a train makes almost more sense and it would help unclog the New York air space.

 

[cirdan]

It was actually an Aloha Airlines B737.View attachment 26975

That picture looks truly freakish. I'm surprised passengers could survive a fuselage breach of that size and still look so apparently fine, or even that the plane could survive it without breaking apart.

 

[Exvalley]

Here are the shortest of the American Airlines Flights.

Do flight attendants hate those flights since you are paid for time spent flying? Or does it come out in the wash since you can get more legs in one day?

 

[Seaboard92]

Do flight attendants hate those flights since you are paid for time spent flying? Or does it come out in the wash since you can get more legs in one day?

They hate them because service is a nightmare. Now me I love them as I love working a fast service as a challenge to myself. I also love the jokes I can make on the intercom about how much nicer flying is without the 900 potholes of I77 in South Carolina. I also like that I can do five of those in one day which gives me 380 passengers to try and sell a credit card to because I get a pretty decent kickback on the credit cards. And I've more than doubled my salary on those.

 

[Exvalley]

I also like that I can do five of those in one day which gives me 380 passengers to try and sell a credit card to because I get a pretty decent kickback on the credit cards. And I've more than doubled my salary on those.

Happy for you, but those announcements are SO annoying! (I know... you have no choice.)

 

[lynnjo]

They hate them because service is a nightmare. Now me I love them as I love working a fast service as a challenge to myself. I also love the jokes I can make on the intercom about how much nicer flying is without the 900 potholes of I77 in South Carolina. I also like that I can do five of those in one day which gives me 380 passengers to try and sell a credit card to because I get a pretty decent kickback on the credit cards. And I've more than doubled my salary on those.

Explain about selling the credit card, I've never heard of this.
Are you a flight attendant?

 

[Seaboard92]

Happy for you, but those announcements are SO annoying! (I know... you have no choice.)

Well I do get a choice. But right now the choice is make almost $100 dollars in free money extra per approved application or not make extra. And the extra can help me with some life goals. I generally make the announcement a bit better because I do it more like Jerry Seinfeld adding humor into it. And sometimes flight sightseeing too. You never know what you'll hear when I open my mouth, as I never know what I'm going to say.

Explain about selling the credit card, I've never heard of this.
Are you a flight attendant?

I am one. Basically American based airlines have loyalty credit cards and if you open it with the special offer on the plane from the flight attendant we get a kick back.