Which two countries are the most distant from each other in terms of number of flight segments?
For the purpose of this question, distance means the number of flight hops needed to get from one country to another, with the following conditions:
- Any two points within the two countries count, so you can't pick the least popular airport in the country.
- Only scheduled flights are included.
- No overland transport is allowed, unless transferring within the same city
- Flying over a country doesn't count, you have to set foot there.
- You have to pick the shortest possible route, so you mustn't construct a longer route for the sake of adding more hops.
- Any country on Wikipedia's main list of states works.
- If the direction matters (it's faster to get from A to B than vice-versa), pick the longer direction
My guess would be that it takes three hops at most, but maybe some countries are more remote than that?
Best Answer
From Nauru, the only "mainland" airport you can fly to is Brisbane, Australia. From there it is at least two hops to anywhere in Europe or Africa. On the other hand, from the only international airport in Equitorial Guinea you must fly to another airport in Africa, or an airport in Europe, before you can go anywhere else. So I believe that flying from Nauru to Equitorial Guinea will take you at least four hops.
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Answer 2
I think The Federated States of Micronesia to Dominica ties Michael's answer with 5 segments:
- Chuuk Island, Federated States of Micronesia (TKK) - Guam, USA (GUM)
- Guam (GUM) - Honolulu, HI, USA (HNL)
- Honolulu (HNL) - Atlanta, GA, USA (ATL)
- Atlanta (ATL) - either San Juan, PR, USA (SJU) or St. Maartin, Netherlands (SXM)
- SJU or SXM to Dominica (DOM)
You could also do NRT and JFK instead of HNL and ATL if you really like taking the long way. Or you could substitute JFK for ATL while leaving HNL.
Note that while the Wiki pages for Chuuk and other Federated States of Micronesia airports mention flights to HNL, these are all the United "Island Hopper" flight and are not non-stop.
Answer 3
From Vientiane to Rio it takes at least 3 flights. Which means that from smaller Lao airports like Luang Namtha nor Oudomsay, which have flights only to VTE, it takes at least 4 hops. Attapeu was worse, since it took two hops to VTE (AOU-PKZ, PKZ-VTE), but it's closed now.
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