This video was made possible by Hover. Buy your unique domain for 10% off at hover.com/hai. Hello. Plane rides are long except when they’re
short. Some are shorter than others especially the
shortest one which is the most not long. Thank you and goodnight. Ah damn there’s four minutes left until
the ad. Let’s bring out the filler. The longest commercial flight in the world
is the 9,000 mile haul from Doha, Qatar to Auckland, New Zealand. It takes an astronomical 17 hours in which
time you could fly the world’s shortest flight 1,155 times or call Comcast customer
support once. In many cases it doesn’t make sense to fly
a very short distance rather than drive unless you enjoy physical proximity to others and
being asked to take your pants off but in such a case you could just ride the New York
Subway at 11:30 on a Friday night. In most cases you have to leave for the airport
at least two hours before a flight in which time you could drive 120 miles. For that reason, flights under that distance
are as rare as a female Half as Interesting viewer and so therefore they only really exist
if there’s an obstacle to driving. The shortest commercial flight in the US,
for example, is from San Francisco to Sonoma County airport. This flight is flown three times a day by
bus company United Airlines and usually takes only 16 minutes from takeoff in San Francisco
to touchdown in Sonoma County. At best the drive between these two places
takes only an hour and fifteen minutes but at worst the heat death of the universe happens
and you never make it. The flight costs a minimum of $354 one way
which are prices high enough that you’d think these planes would fly empty. United Airlines has, though, with its 92 years
of experience learned that flying planes empty is bad for business. The secret of this flight is that it isn’t
made for traveling between San Francisco and Sonoma County, it’s made for people coming
from the rest of the country then connecting onto this flight. United actually prices a one-way flight from
New York to Sonoma County via San Francisco for only $169. In that case, if you have a 45 minute connection
then the 16 minute flight, it’s far quicker than leaving the airport, getting a rental
car, and driving through San Francisco to Sonoma County. Now that’s enough talk of United. I want this video to take off and United’s
just not very good at that. While the Sonoma County flight is short, it’s
longer than 7 feet. It’s also longer than the world’s shortest
flight. All the world’s shortest flights are to
or from islands as cars don’t work well on water, boats are slow, and so even the
shortest flights to islands make sense. Scotland is a country, kind of, that has loads
of islands—790 to be exact. Many of the more inhabited islands have flights
connecting them to the two largest Scottish cities—Edinburgh and Glasgow. There are some pretty unique ones worth mentioning
like the one from Glasgow to Barra Airport. This flight flies 140 miles so its short though
not excessively short. More than any other airport, pilots have reported
that Barra Airport is a beach to land at. As in, its difficult but also that its runway
is just a beach. It has a terminal and everything, but its
the only commercial airport in the world where planes land on the beach and, of course, the
runway only exists for a few hours per day as the planes can only land at low tide. But this is all beside the point because elsewhere
in Scotland is the actual shortest commercial flight in the world. The Orkney Islands lay north of mainland Scotland
and are home to about 21,000 people. They’re a relatively unknown bit of the
UK despite being inhabited for over 8,500 years. The population of the Orkneys is well spread
out across the islands and some of the more isolated ones like Papa Westray have only
90 residents and no more than one small store. For healthcare and, in many cases, school,
people have to go to capital of the Orkneys—Kirkwall. There are boats to there but the fastest option
to get between the islands is a rocket. Barring that, the number two option is by
plane. On Mondays, for example, a plane leaves Kirkwall
at 8:40 am then 13 minutes later, after traveling 27 miles, it touches down in Westray. Soon after at 9:01, it takes off on what is
the shortest commercial flight in the world. The destination airport, Papa Westray, is
a mere 1.5 miles away across a narrow body of water so this flight takes as little as
53 seconds and crosses a distance shorter than a typical airport runway definitively
making it the shortest flight in the world. Now, granted, this short flight exists so
that passengers from both Westray and Papa Westray can travel to Kirkwall on the same
plane so most people don’t just fly between these two islands but if they did wanted to
they could. At ÂŁ17 or $22, the ticket is cheaper than
an Apache Attack Helicopter, but this flight costs about $15 per mile which is more per
mile than it costs to fly from New York to London in first class. Now, if you find yourself in Westray with
$22, you have a choice—you could use it to fly to Papa Westray or you could use it
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I am pretty sure this was twice as interesting as the usual HAI even though it was several times longer than the flight they were discussing.
I was expecting something flying out of Isle of Man, I guess I’m incorrect.