These are the shortest flights in the world

If you add up the time it takes to pack your suitcase, take a taxi to the airport, and go through regulatory checks, the total minutes spent will likely exceed the amount of time you will be in the air if you take any of the following flights. Yes, we are referring to the shortest air routes in the world.

Perhaps the first one on the list is not the shortest of all, but it is one of the oldest. Recently, the Finnish company Finnair celebrated its centenary by honoring what would be the first route in the airline's history: Helsinki (Finland) - Tallinn (Estonia). At that time, the company was called Aero and it was a German-made Junker F13 that in March 1924 transported 162 kilos of mail to the capital of Estonia. It should be noted that at that time, as there were no airfields in Finland, the Junkers were seaplanes that used skis in winter and floats in summer. In total, 269 passengers took this flight in the first year of the airline's life. Finnair currently operates around the world with a total of 89 routes. True to its origins, the company continues to offer the original route between Helsinki and Tallinn to all its passengers: one of the shortest international flights in Europe and the world with a duration of approximately 30 minutes.

However, the flight between the two capitals of the Gulf of Finland is not the shortest air journey on the planet. The gold medal goes to the airline Loganair, which connects the Scottish islands of Westray and Papa Westray. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this national journey was the shortest on the planet in 2023. The flight lasts just two minutes, which is the time it takes to travel the 2.7 kilometers that separate both islands of the Orkney archipelago. , in the north of Scotland, less than it takes a regular flight to reach cruising altitude. According to the airline itself, the journey can even last less than 90 seconds if the weather permits it. An escape route for the 90 people who, according to the last census, reside in Papa Westray, connecting their hidden lives with the world.

Most short-term flights seek to connect territories that are isolated or have a close commercial and cultural relationship, such as Helsinki and Tallinn. A unique opportunity if you are traveling to immediately connect with a completely different region and complete your itinerary. The silver medal for the shortest flights in the world also belongs to Scotland. This time we are talking about the island of Stronsay and the island of Sanday, also located in the Orkney archipelago, with a flight operated by Loganair of just four minutes.

Far from the land where Arthur Conan Doyle was born, we moved to the country of the rising sun to finish the podium with a flight by the Japanese airline Ryukyu Air Commuter. The journey seems like a covert tribute to the characters created by the recently deceased mangaka Akira Toriyama - author of the Dragon Ball saga - in which Goku and company crossed the sky in just a few seconds. Thirteen kilometers in three minutes, that is how long it takes the Havilland Dash 8 Q400 Combi to travel the distance between the islands of Minami Daito and Kitadaito in the Daito archipelago, 349 kilometers east of Okinawa.

Very close to the podium of the shortest routes on the planet in the last year is the flight between Hoolehua and Kalaupapa in Hawaii. Operated by the regional airline Mokulele Airlines - acquired in 2019 by Southern Airways Express -, between takeoff and landing, passengers will be able to change islands in just 15 minutes.

Closing the top we find more connections between different islands with an average of 15 minutes each way: Saipan to Tinian (Star Marianas Air), in the Northern Mariana Islands; Papeete and Moorea (Air Tahiti) in French Polynesia; Saint Kitts to Nevis (Air Sunshine) in the Caribbean; Connemara to Inishmore (Aer Arann) in Ireland and the flight from Karpathos to Kasos (Sky Express) in Greece in just 20 minutes.

In our country, we can also boast of having one of the shortest jet flights in the world. This is the route that connects the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura in the Canary archipelago. In just 23 minutes, a Boeing 737 from the airlines TUI fly Belgium and Transavia travels the 60 kilometers that separate both airports. Without a doubt, it costs more to get to the airport than to get on one of these flights.