Air shuttle

An air shuttle is a shuttle service operated with aircraft. Although many airlines employ "shuttle" in their name, a true air shuttle is typically characterized by

• short, limited routes
• frequent, regular scheduled service
• simplified fare and class structures.

Many shuttle services are established by governments, businesses, or organizations which require a high level of service in an otherwise thin corridor. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration's William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey operates an air shuttle to ferry FAA employees to and from Reagan National Airport (DCA) near Washington, DC four days a week. Ohio University operates its Bobcat Air Shuttle to Washington Dulles International Airport from its Gordon K. Bush Airport.

Certain dense markets may support commercial shuttles. The pioneer service was the Eastern Air Shuttle, which offered no-frills, hourly flights connecting LaGuardia Airport in New York City with Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Examples of present-day commercial air shuttle services include

• US Airways Shuttle
• Delta Shuttle
• Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways service between Tokyo(Tokyo International Airport) and Osaka(Osaka International Airport, Kansai International Airport) in Japan
• Air Canada RapidAir[1] service between Toronto and Montreal as well as Toronto and Ottawa in Canada
• TAM, GOL and Varig's Ponte Aérea service between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
• Iberia Puente Aéreo service between Madrid and Barcelona every 30 minutes, in Spain. Spanair operates the same route under the name Puente a Barcelona or Pont a Madrid depending on the point of departure, although they have cut back the frequencies recently, mainly due to the newly opened high-speed rail link between the two cities.
• Air France La Navette service offers 80 flights a day from Paris - Orly Airport to Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice, and Toulouse, with a flight every 30-60 minutes. This service is used by more than 5.6 million travellers every year.
• Qantas and QantasLink 'CityFlyer' service offers flights between major Australian capital cities on weekdays, with complimentary alcoholic afternoon drinks, newspapers, flexible fares and more frequent schedules.
• Korean air, Asiana airlines and other minor Korean airlines' service between Gimpo international airport and Jeju international airport.