Niki, a subsidiary of Air Berlin, is launching what is billed as the world’s shortest international flight on April 1st. The Vienna to Bratislava flight is scheduled to last a mere 10 to 20 minutes (depending on the source) between take-off and landing.
Currently, there is a direct train connection and intercity bus service between both cities. They take approximately 1 hour from station to station and cost much less than the flight. Taking check-in time and costs into consideration, most people (other than aviation enthusiasts) will probably continue to just use the train.
The airline acknowledges the route will be most useful as a transfer service for commuters catching a connecting flight in Vienna.
This isn’t actually the shortest international flight.
Kinshasa – Brazzaville, connecting the capitals of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is actually shorter at just 16 miles! I believe there are about 16 weekly flights on this route.
My understanding is that this flight will be the shortest flight time wise while the Kinshasa – Brazzaville is the shortest distance wise.
By time, then, wouldn’t it be Punta Arenas, Peru to Porvenir, Chile on Aerovías? That’s longer at 28 miles but quicker at just 12 minutes.
Gary,
I’m seeing the Niki flight time mentioned in various news sources as anywhere from 10-20 minutes so I guess the Niki might still be in play? Updated the last paragraph and curious to see what actually happens on April 1st. Thanks for the Aerovias info…surprisingly little info on that out there!
Gate-to-Gate Bratislava-Vienna will take longer just because of other aircraft operations on the ground at both airports, and due to air traffic control…
Gary, the Aerovias flight is actually a domestic flight. I read conflicting info on the trusty internet as to which Punta Arenas the flight originates from so I checked with the airline- they confirmed both cities are located in Chile.
Living in Allentown, PA I am no stranger to the ABE-PHL route that US Airways Express runs. The flight also takes 20 minutes from takeoff to landing, it’s a prop plane half the time, and it parallels I-476 the entire way. There is no practical reason to take this flight except that it’s sometimes cheaper to fly X-PHL-ABE (or reverse) than only X-PHL.
A similar route is that United runs a bus (not an Airbus, a bus) between EWR and ABE. I’ve had coworkers book a United ticket from X-EWR-ABE and not realize what their the last “leg” consisted of until they saw a bus parked outside their “gate” in EWR.
Pat,
First time hearing about the United bus- got a kick out of reading about the logistics on their website (security, luggage drop-off, etc).
The United ‘bus’ SJC-SFO used to be great.
* SJC fares were much much lower than SFO
* The bus segment required a paper ticket
* So you’d just tear the bus segment out of your ticket book, and check in at SFO
* And get your 500 mile minimum for the bus segment anyway.
UA used to FLY BWI-IAD. And BWI fares were much lower thanks to Southwest. So I’d drive up to BWI to catch the IAD flight I actually wanted. My earlier check-in time meant I was higher on the upgrade list for the IAD flight (this was before online checkin), I’d earn the extra miles, and save money too. As long as I was flying at times that didn’t require sitting in traffic…