Would You Take an Eight-Minute Flight?
Photo: Susann Prautsch/Getty
Eight minutes. That’s the length of the world’s shortest international flight.
The 13-mile flight zooms from St. Gallen-Altenrhein, Switzerland to Friedrichshafen, Germany (right next to Lake Constance) in the amount of time it takes to call your mom or fold a load of laundry.
What’s the need for such a layover? Lake Constance magnets, duh. Initially, the stop is
Friedrichshafen is meant to be a layover for passengers heading to or from Cologne-Bonn
airport. But for some, it’s turned into a joke of a flight.
As quaint as an eight-minute flight seems—and that’s not including the taxiing—it has not come without controversy. For starters, a one-way ticket between the two stops costs $45.
Furthermore, the fuel required for such a short journey is massively disproportionate to that of, well, literally any other means of transportation. A car ride between the two airports, for
example, takes roughly an hour around the scenic Lake Constance. Even a lakeside train ride only takes two hours.
Tom is a travel writer, part-time hitchhiker, and he’s currently trying to imitate Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? but with more sunscreen and jorts.