golfkat Travel Blog

This is from Chris at Flightright.com on a website called Boarding Area.  Essentially useless information that will break up your Black Friday just in time.  Though not as powerful as a glass of wine or champagne, it will nonetheless tickle your fancy!

1.  The shortest flight in the world is 27 seconds, from Westray to Papa Westray, Scotland.  Why?

2.  The lowest airport in the world is Schiphol, Amsterdam at 9.8 feet below sea level.

3.  If you think American airport are back, would you believe on 6 airports out of 39 in Germany are profitable?

4.  If you have been to Gibraltar, would you believe airport runway crosses a public road.  Rest at ease knowing they block the road when the airport runway is being used.

5.  The highest airport is not Denver, but Daocheng Yading airport in China.  No word on whether they have decriminalized marijuana.

6.  The longest flight in the world, at least right now, is from Dallas, TX to Sydney, Australia, a whopping 8574 miles, and a short 15 hours and 35 minutes.  I have ben on some flights that seem that long!

7.  There is really an airport in Turkey, called Batman airport.  No word on whether the Batmobile has been spotted there.

 Batman, Turkey

8.  Leave it to those crazy and creative Aussies, who named their airport, Wagga Wagga.

9.  But there is a better one yet, called SEX, the airport code for Sembach military airport in Germany.  It must be one of their more profitable ones!

 Would you believe I was in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland back in 1971?

10.  Have you ever seen the numbers,  13, 17, or 666 on a gate, or flight number?  They are considered unlucky in the airline world.

11.  Boeing is not what it seems, an American aircraft manufacturer.  More than 6 million items, produced in 33 different countries, are required to build a single 747-400 plane.

12.  The smallest airplane in the world has a wing span of only 16 feet.  Compare that to the largest bird, the wandering albatross, has a wing span of up to 12.46 feet.

13.  The famous “black box” the flight recorder on all planes, is actually red.  It is easier to find, though it might be a conspiracy by either the old Russians or Standfurd.

14.  The largest plane in the world is probably a Russian Antonov AN-225, with a wing span of 290 feet.  It was used to transport their space shuttle, the “Buran”.

15.  At any one time in Europe, there are 70,000 people in the air.  I wonder how many in the U.S. are in the air at one time?

16.  About half of the world’s population flew in 2012, about 3 billion people worldwide.  In the U.S., 677 million flew during that same year.

17.  Only 30 million pieces of lost luggage each year covers 10,252 miles.  And most lost luggage is claimed or reunited with their owners, within 42 hours.

 Ha Ha Ha!!!

18.  Five million international flights were delayed in 2013.  And 30 minutes is the average delay at European airports.

19.  Did you know that you have 4 years to file your claim for flight delay compensation?

20.  And 3 hour or more delay can provide you with up to $820 compensation, if the flight is 2174 miles or more.  Only 2% of us ever fie a claim even though we qualify.

If you have any god stories about flight delays or interesting airports/airplanes, please send them along.  I think I have told you about all of mine.  They are getting too numerous to remember!!!