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  • 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

  • citiesEdinburgh 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 OrkneysKirkwall.

  • 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 £17 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 choiceyou could use it

  • to fly to Papa Westray or you could use it to purchase the domain that is used to launch

  • your billion or trillion or dozen dollar company.

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