WHBM

Alas it's not "on RAF" any longer. Their Tristars are in too much demand nowadays to head out to Iraq and Afghanistan, so they have subcontracted operation of the Falklands route out to HiFly, who are a Portugese charter airline. It's still an RAF-organised flight, but just done by a commercial operator.

jbcarioca

That is sad news. I always have liked Tristars and that would have probably been my last chance to fly in one. Too bad. I'll just have memories of GulfAir Five Star TriStar in the late 1970's.

skchin

What's definition of a domestic flight?

jbcarioca

Stimpy mentioned the point of not clearing customs, and a number of others have suggested it should stay within national boundaries all the way, not overfly foreign territory, etc. I think the thread needs a clear definition, we've been circling that topic without resolution for a while. Would you like to try making a definition?

Bob'sYourUncle

Even if, international waters do NOT belong to the US, or anyone else. So the flight leaves US borders in any case.

Bob'sYourUncle

I love how France is the only country where you could theoretically fly around the world while staying "domestic" the whole time
PAR-RUN-NOU-PPT-PTP-PAR

WHBM

Alas, not precise enough. Regarding customs, flights from the Channel Islands (Jersey etc) to the UK mainland are regarded as domestic, and do not enter immigration, but do clear customs, as the islands have their own reduced tax regime.

Meanwhile the point about being within national boundaries also causes issues, as there are very many domestic flights that exceed this. It was an issue back in the days when California used to issue their own intra-state airline licences (remember PSA and AirCal ?) that were outwith FAA control, but there were issues that the standard departure out of LAX to San Francisco took them beyond the 12 mile US territorial limit.

baggageinhall

The RAF operate their own 'elite status' on those flights. If they are overbooked, then civilians are at the back of the queue. Quite sensible but it can be a pain if you are on a non-leisure, but non-RAF trip!

xlaurens

with a chartered 777 that could work!

WHBM

I know the booking conditions are full of notes about this, but in fact these flights nowadays generally run more than half empty.

jbcarioca

PSA and AirCal were both FAA authorized FAR 121 air carriers that happened to operate only within a region. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines

The Wiki on PSA also discusses AirCal. No standard departure from LAX ever went beyond US territorial limit AFAIK, but many flights did routinely do that. When These airlines were still around I flew from bases in VNY and LGB flying in and out of LAX very often. We used to conduct training from time to time 15-20 miles out because there was so little traffic there.

Apart from that irrelevant point I agree with the idea that one criterion we might have is that the flight must remain within national territory at all times to be considered domestic. Keep in mind that MIA-JFK often will no be domestic under that definition nor will any flights between the 48 states and Alaska or Hawaii. Obviously our thread favorite French routes would not qualify nor the recent British competitors.

My personal preference would be to ignore the customs issue but include immigration, because immigration does constitute a de facto government assertion of non-domestic status. Even that has some problems since a handful; of places including Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo, have domestic flights that arrive in international terminals, thuis sometimes are subjected to immigration control. This last example is not perfect because the domestic passengers are usually, but not always, waved through immigration. Such flights do exist in several countries and often are subject to immigration checks.

stimpy

That brings to mind the fact that US immigration is in place at Canadian airports. So does this mean that YVR-MIA would be the longest domestic flight (if it existed)? And are we total travel nerds for having this discussion?

jbcarioca

I don't understand the last question, Stimpy. I thought that was a given. If not whatever are we doing here? Would anybody else care a whit for our arcane trivia (I guess that is redundant)?

jbcarioca

Couldn't be YVR-MIA because MIA-SEA is longer. It would be the longest north-south east coast flight though, maybe.

Kiwi Flyer

I think you're confusing YVR with YYZ. From GCM, YVR-MIA is longer than MIA-SEA.