I F YOU STARTED reading this article as Loganair Flight 711 lifted off from the compacted-gravel runway at Papa Westray (airport code PPW ), a tiny island at the northern end of Orkney, it would have landed by the time you finished. Its first destination, the neighbouring island of Westray ( WRY ), is all of 2.7km away—a distance shorter than Heathrow airport’s runways. Lasting less than two minutes, the route holds the record for the shortest scheduled flight in the world.

Some 75-odd weekly inter-island services connect Kirkwall, the main settlement and primary airport in Orkney, with six islands on the archipelago. Last year, around 21,000 passengers flew between the islands on Loganair’s three Britten-Norman Islander aircraft, which can carry up to eight passengers in a minivan-style arrangement. North Ronaldsay (population 72) and Papa Westray (population 90) received the most traffic. Neither island has a pier, and ferry crossings are infrequent or, depending on weather, non-existent. “So we try to compensate” with the air service, says James Stockan, the council leader.

The Papa Westray-Westray trip is cheap for passengers—£17 one way, and £1 more to fly all the way back to Kirkwall—but costlier for taxpayers. The Orkney Islands Council throws in another £46 (€50), adding up to an annual subsidy bill of just under £1m. The subsidy—paid for largely by the Scottish government—is exempt from strict European Union rules on state aid because it is a “lifeline” route. This is no exaggeration: between October and April, all North Ronaldsay’s supplies, including food, come by air every Tuesday.