- This week I ride on a tiny airliner, visit a bordello, and
stay in a seedy motel. All in a quest to visit
the least used airport in the entire continental US. Welcome to the bright
lines of Billings, Montana. And I'm here because there's a brand new, least used airport to go and explore. Fun fact, this hotel, the
DoubleTree in Billings, is 22 stories high. It's the tallest building in Billings. And when it was built, it was the tallest brick
structure in the world. Good morning, how are you? Checking out please, here, 106. - [Clerk] All righty.
- [Noel] Yeah. - [Clerk] Did you need a receipt for that? - [Noel] No, I'll be good, thank you. - [Clerk] All right,
you have a lovely day. - Thanks very much, you too. Hi, how are you? - [Driver] Good morning,
how are you today? - [Noel] I'm good, how are you? - [Noel] Good. Oh, thank you very much.
- [Driver] My pleasure. - [Noel] All right, so
time to head to the airport on this week's adventure
to the middle of nowhere. My first stop, Billings-Logan
International Airport. - [Driver] Thank you. - [Noel] Yeah, thanks very
much. Have a great day. Yeah, you too. All right, welcome to a very rainy, Billings-Logan International Airport. I'm not quite sure where
the international comes in. It's a very small airport to
have international flights, but hey, we're not going
international today. We're off to another tiny little airport, even smaller than this,
somewhere else in Montana. But before I headed to the plane, it was time to get some breakfast. - How are you today? - [Noel] I'm good, how are you? Can I please have a Cinnabon
classic roll please? - Yes, absolutely. - [Noel] With a black coffee please. - Yes.
- [Noel] Thank you. - Would you like a receipt?
- [Noel] No. I'll be all right, thank you.
- Thank you very much. Over along the wall, forks,
knives, napkins, cream, sugar. Thanks.
- [Noel] Sounds good, thanks. Have a great day.
- Have a great day. - [Noel] You too, bye-bye.
- [Employee] Good morning. - It's quite a nice little
airport is here at Billings. It's the only airport,
well, the only airport with commercial flights
here in Billings, Montana. The lady at the hotel last
night described it to me, as a big small town,
which is kind of right. The airport's quite nice. They've got a few flights
a day here to Denver, primarily with United, but they also fly with an
airline called Cape Air, who have flown on before out to some of these smaller little airports. And it's Cape Air that
we are flying on today, but not for another sort of half an hour. So have some breakfast, and we'll get down to the gate. Soon, it was time to head
down to the Cape Air gate, - Good morning sir.
- [Noel] Thank you. - Just have you wait
right around the corner. Top of the stairs.
- [Noel] Thank you. - I'll take you down.
- Thank you. Now the flight I'm on today was supposed to be on one of these
things, a Tecnam P2012, which would be a new aircraft type for me. Unfortunately though,
as we headed downstairs, Cape Air had other plans for me today. We headed across the rainy
ramp past the lovely Tecnams, and straight for a 40-year-old Cessna 402. Still, a plane's a plane,
and the engines fired up, and we started our taxi out at the runway to get on our way across Montana. All right then, airborne
from Billings heading to the least used airport
in the whole of the US. We're heading to a place
called Havre today, in the north of Montana. Cape Air flying Tecnam
P2012 a lot these days. I thought I was gonna be
on one today actually. But actually we got something
far cooler in the end, in the form of this. The Cessna 402, this is
what Cape Air have used for years over on the East coast, from Massachusetts,
Nantucket, places like that. They're now flying this one
out of Billings, Montana. They've got the Tecnams as well, as we saw when we walked
out into the plane. But it's about an hour and 45 minutes. It's a really crappy day for flying today. So we're gonna be in the
clouds bouncing around, on most of the flight. So cool, though. After an hour and a half
bouncing around in the clouds, we started our descent
and got our first views of the tiny town of Havre, with a population of just 9,000 people. Havre's a town built around the railroad, something that's very clear, as you fly over the town on approach. But soon after that we
got our first glimpse of the least used airport
in the continental US, the tiny Havre City County Airport. We taxied into the tiny terminal building, and parked up right outside. - [Employee] And just push the
door, the door's open, okay? - [Noel] Thank you. Thank you.
- [Person] You're welcome. - Welcome to the tiny airport
here at Havre in Montana. This is one of the most northernmost towns in the whole of the US. We're about 30 miles away
from the land of mooses and milk bags in Canada. ♪ Never made it as a wise man ♪ - And it's also for the last 12 months that we have data for
the least used airport in the whole of the continental US. It's had for the year
ending December, 2022, 5,780 passengers in total. That's both ways, landing and departing. 2,800 arriving, and 2,900 departing, which means there's actually
more people departing however than there are arriving. Actually 54, who departed
never to return again. Or maybe they did by road. There's really no way we could know. But either way it works
out to about 7.5 passengers per day each way here at Havre. This is it, this is the terminal building. There's no Uber or anything up here. I have a rental car, so I was gonna try and get in my rental car
and we'll take a ride down into downtown Havre and see what's here. Yes, a proper car. Not like these Teslas
that we have in Phoenix, and places like that. Look at this, Dodge Ram, this will do. All right, well this is me, one of the only hotels here in Havre. This is the Siesta Motel. Yeah, let's go, let's go
and see what it's like. Hi, how are you?
- How's it going? - [Noel] I'm good, I've got
a room booked for tonight. - All righty, you'll
just be right upstairs, and around the corner. - [Noel] Okay, perfect,
thank you very much. - Starting on the left side over there. - [Noel] All right, thank
you very much, cheers. - [Employee] Yeah, have a good night. - You too, thank you. All right, here we are
then, the Siesta Motel. Lovely view. Just gonna find me room,
just up here, I think. This is me. Mm, okay, well the smell hits
you first, that's for sure. Got some lights on, though. Yeah, I mean this is... A room. So let's see what a
hundred dollars a night gets you at the Siesta
Motel in Havre, Montana. We've got rather creepy random chair in the middle of the room here. Don't really wanna know what's in there. We've got a nice beautiful blind there. That shields our view of the... Carpark. Aircon unit, we've got two lovely beds, one here and one there. There's another random
chair placed here, okay. And then we've got a slidey thing, so that we can have a second
guest if we wanted one. And then we've got what's
the view out over here like? Okay, so there's my view at the back, we've got a boat and then
we've got the bathroom. Let's have a look. Should we do a loo review? Right, we've got a shower in there. We've got this beautiful 1960s tiling, apart from there where
they've missed a bit. And... Yeah, that's a bathroom, there's a bulb out there, as well. And then we've got the shower, which sort of handily opened
into the bedroom like so. And then yeah, okay. Hmm. What've we got down here? Hang on, we've got a
fridge, is there a mini bar? It's a hot point from the 1950s. Let's have a look. Oh, look at that bad boy. And this beautiful... Beautiful brick work
that's not quite attached. We'll leave that, and
this amazing wooding here. Do love a bit of wood,
let's have a look up there. Does that, hang on,
does that come on there? No, that's broken as well, we've got a light switch here. Oh no, what are they? Oh, are they fuses? Don't play with them, no, crikey. And this, this is like, it's a bit retro. It's a little bit retro,
but we like retro. We're flying to these tiny towns. We get retro, it's nice. All right, so let's go
and have a little explore around the town of Havre, Montana. We've got the railroad
tracks here for a start. That's what you can see because
Havre is a railroad town. It's on the main line
between Seattle and Chicago. In fact, I've been through here, on the Empire Builder
train which stops off here. It's one of the stops along it's route. And I stopped off here
very briefly in that video. I'll pop a link up in the screen there. So this is like the downtown
area by the looks of it, there's not really much here, it's like a row of shops effectively. It's all there, we got town square. So we're right in the downtown
area of Havre, Montana, and there's a few little
shops and things around. It's quite cool. Real old school Western town vibes. I really, really like it. Although there is looking
a little bit rundown. But these are railway towns
like this where they sort of, a lot of them are, there's not much here. It's quite a transient sort of place. People come, people go, but
not many people stick around. So there's a place I really
wanted to go here in Havre, that shows a really cool piece of history about this small town. And I think it might be down here, it's a bit of a back alley. Deep beneath the streets of Havre, is a remarkable piece of the town's past. But to get there you
have to head underground. - [Person] Did I forget to tell you? - [Noel] Back in 1904, a
fire started in the town. At the time, almost every
building was built from wood. So the fire spread quickly, soon burning down much of the town. Never ones to be defeated,
the townspeople moved their businesses into the
basements of the buildings, which were all interconnected. Underground, a thriving
town started to grow. Thanks to being hidden from street level, the tunnels of Havre played
host to everything from bakeries to bordellos and pharmacies to opium dens, which have all been restored
as a museum exhibit, that you can walk around today. I do have to admit it was
pretty creepy underground, with some really strange
atmospheres in some of the rooms. But it's incredible to see such history, right beneath the town streets. Isn't it incredible just
how much history there is, even in a tiny remote, rural
Montana town, like Havre? Just blows my mind every time. Right, let's get back to the Siesta. After a somewhat sleepless
night at the Siesta Motel, it was time to head back to the airport, to see about getting my
flight back to Billings. All right, good morning from
the Siesta Motel in Havre, it's time to head back to
the airport now in the truck. Yay, and get back to my flight, back to Billings this morning, which hopefully is going on time. The weather doesn't look too bad, so fingers crossed they make it up here. Let's get back to the airport. The good thing about
small towns like this is that the airport's only
about a 10 minute drive from downtown and you
only have to be there about half an hour before the plane goes. All right and welcome back
to Havre Airport, Montana. There's only like two
flights a day out of here, with Cape Air, both of them
down to Billings, Montana. There's one at lunchtime,
one in the evening tonight. So, I'm on the lunchtime flight today. This airport has been
served by Cape Air now, for about the last 10 years
under the Essential Air Service like so many of these
little tiny airports are. It's the only way they can
keep connectivity really. And before Cape Air came
along, they were served by Silver Airways, the
Florida based airline, who also used to do some Essential
Air Service work as well. I'm not sure if they still do actually. Cape Air have flown here for some time. It's been their only aviation
lifeline with the outside world really because it's
miles away from anywhere. It's four hours drive
down to Billings, Montana. It's crazy, long way. Cape Air originally
sent in the Cessna 402s, they still do, as we found out yesterday. And fingers crossed we might
get on a Tecnam today as well because they're starting
to replace the Cessnas, with the Tecnams to give people a bit of a better service up here. But who knows, I'd be
happy with either of 'em, it'll be nice to get on a Cessna 402, before they're all gone. But equally, it would be
really cool to get a ride on a Tecnam, 'cause they've not
been on one of those before. But, we'll find out what
it's gonna be later on. But it's freezing out here, it's so cold. I'm gonna head inside and
try and warm up a bit, while I wait for my flight. I headed into the terminal building, where I was the first
passenger of the day. Good morning, how are you? - Hi, how you doing? - [Noel] I'm good, thank you. - Checking in?
- [Noel] Yeah. Please?
- [Noel] I do indeed. - Noel?
- [Noel] It is indeed. Yeah, there you go, sir.
- Thank you. Check any bags at all? - [Noel] No, just me
hand baggage, thank you. - Okay, you mind putting it on that? - [Noel] I can, yeah. - [Clerk] Yeah, there's not
a lot to do, unfortunately. - [Noel] Gonna say, no
duty free or anything? - Eh, not as such.
- [Noel] Starbucks? - [Clerk] There's some magazines
in the rack on the corner. - [Noel] There you go,
that's all you need. - You go back to the UK much? - [Noel] I think I've been back once. We moved over in October last year, so. And I've been back, I went
only 'cause of the work, I connected through London
last month or something. That's the only time
I've been through, so. - Yeah, I got green card
and I got citizenship, 'cause it was so much
easier to do it that way. - [Noel] That's the plan. We wanted to get
citizenship down the line. So we'll see, it's early,
early days yet, but. It wasn't too long before the
other passengers turned up, and TSA opened, and to my surprise, pre-check was available here at Havre, meaning I didn't have to
get all my stuff out my bag, before I went through security. - Ready, need to use the
restroom, use it now, going on the plane. - [Noel] Once you get through security, there's a tiny little waiting
area with a handful of seats and pretty soon I saw my flight arriving, and sadly it wasn't the Tecnam, it was the Cessna 402, again. - Check your bags, please. Anything with an orange tag. Everybody got the boarding
passes, right up please? - [Noel] Somehow I forgot
to turn off the camera on my backpack, so you actually
got quite a good view of it being wheeled out the plane,
and put in the baggage compartment in the nose of the Cessna. - [Employee] And that
should leave me with Noel. - [Noel] Yes, that's just me. - [Employee] After those two there mate. - [Noel] All right, perfect. Thank you very much, well,
lovely to meet you anyway. - [Employee] Little
one's got a longer leg, if you wanna stick your legs. - [Noel] So, just throw it here. - [Employee] That one there, yeah. You can stick your legs up there. - [Noel] All right.
- [Employee] Good to see you. Good luck, mate.
- [Noel] You too, mate. Thank you very much. - [Employee] All the
best, yeah, same to you. - See you later, thank you, too. We just had a single pilot on board today for the flight back down to Billings and it wasn't long before
the engines were firing up and we were on our way
back into the skies. Airborne once again, from Halvre, Montana, on the Cessna 402 again
and a bit of a shame, I was kind of hoping for the Tecnam, but the 402 is still a
really cool plane to fly on. There's my view out the window, there's my view looking forward. Just an incredible ride. I love flying on these
really tiny little planes out to these backward towns
in the middle of nowhere. They really are just so much fun to ride. And we've got about an
hour on the flight down, to Billings now, hopefully
relatively smooth and hopefully with a bit of better view than we had yesterday on the way up. And indeed the weather did stay clear for most of my flight
back down to Billings, giving us some great views
of the Missouri River, and Central Montana down below. It took us about an hour to
get back down to Billings, which seemed to fly by in no time. Believe it or not, Billings Airport wasn't always a small town airport. Back in the late '70s and early '80s, it even sourced service on
Boeing 747s and and DC-10s, as Northwest Airlines
stopped here on their flights from Minneapolis and New York to Seattle. These days, the biggest aircraft here are cargo planes with FedEx
and UPS both having a hub here. My ride up to Havre and back cost me $78, working out to around 20 cents per mile. You can book this flight
direct on Cape Air's website, or you can buy a ticket with United, and connect onto it thanks
to their co-share agreement, meaning that if you've got any bags, they can be checked right through. - [Passenger] 24, good for you. - [Noel] That'll also let you
earn some miles on United too. - [Passenger] That was a great flight. - [Passenger] Yes, it
was amazing one actually. Great. - [Pilot] And I hope you all
a have good rest of your day. - [Noel] Thank you, you too. Thank you very much. - We're gonna restart these two planes, and then we'll have... Hello, welcome to Billings. - Hi there, how are you? All right then, welcome
back to Billings, Montana. What an amazing trip that
was up to Havre and back, great flights with Cape Air as well. As always, they're a fun
little airline to fly on. Something a little bit
more boring for me now, if there is such thing as a boring plane. But it's a Boeing, and I'm back on United
heading back down to Denver. But lemme know what you
thought of this video. And also if you'd had to make
the trek up to Havre, Montana, to fly to this least used airport. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Anyway, thanks very much for watching. Take care, be kind to one another, and I'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.
