Discover the shortest scheduled passenger flight in Italy, shorter than the metro ride to Linate Airport!

3 min read

1 week ago Danilo

But not only, as you also land at one of Italy’s smallest airports!
In short, when you realize you’re actually flying, you’re already landing.
This is the Pisa–Marina di Campo flight on the Elba Island, declared by the airline that operates it as “the shortest scheduled flight in Italy.”
But more than a flight, it’s a “hop” in the air that lasts as long as the metro ride from San Babila to Linate Airport.

On official schedule, flights on the route are scheduled for 40 minutes gate-to-gate, that is, from the moment the parking brake is released to the moment the plane comes to a stop on the Marina di Campo runway.
But if you look only at the “in-flight” time, excluding taxiing and alignment phases, the actual flight time is much shorter: around 17 minutes from Pisa to Elba, making it the shortest flight in Italy.
The distance as the crow flies is approximately 103 kilometers, the same as going from Milan to Brescia.

The flight is a scheduled connection operated by Small Fly Airlines, connecting Elba Island with Pisa, Florence, and Milan Linate using small turboprop aircraft, such as the 8-seater Beechcraft King Air 200.
The Pisa–Elba route is structured as a territorial continuity service, with at least three flights per week between June 1st and September 30th and two flights per week during the winter, with a reduced fare for Elba residents.
For residents, in fact, the flight is relatively cheap.
For the Pisa–Elba route, prices are around €36 one-way, but for tourists, the price can rise significantly – on search engines, single tickets have ranged from a few dozen euros and can exceed €150–170 in high season, depending on demand and booking date.
However, it’s the price you pay for saving hours of travel – by land, you have to arrive in Piombino, board the ferry to Portoferraio, about an hour’s journey plus waiting time, and then continue by car or bus, for a total journey that easily exceeds 3–4 hours.
With this option, however, you depart from Pisa’s Galileo Galilei Airport, often crowded with direct low-cost flights throughout Europe, and then land at one of Italy’s smallest airports, Marina di Campo, with an asphalt runway just under 1,200 meters long, nestled between hills, fields, and the wonderful blue gulf.
On board, the experience is almost like an air taxi: few seats, no boarding tunnel, and you often have to walk from the runway.
In addition, the pilot is just a few steps away from the passengers, and the landscape is clearly visible from the windows.
After takeoff, just enough time to see the skyline of Pisa recede, the beaches of the coast, and the islands of the archipelago grow larger, and you’re already landing on the island of Elba!

But probably you didn’t known that the Loganair Westray to Papa Westray route is actually the shortest scheduled passenger flight in the world. Flights on the route are scheduled for one-and-a-half minutes, and actual flying time is closer to one minute. The record for the fastest flight is 53 seconds, and the route is flown by Loganair, a Scottish regional airline that serves Scotland’s Highlands and Islands….