I have flown into a number of small island airports on aircraft with fewer than twenty seats, and it is a category of travel with its own rules that nobody explains beforehand.
Weight limits are real and enforced
The first surprise for most people.
Small aircraft operate with genuinely tight weight and balance constraints, and baggage allowances are correspondingly small — frequently ten to fifteen kilograms including cabin bags.
Excess is not a fee, it is frequently a refusal. Bags may be left behind and sent on a later flight, which is standard practice and disconcerting the first time.
Some operators weigh passengers, which people find startling and which is a straightforward operational requirement rather than anything else.
And seating may be assigned at the gate for balance reasons rather than by preference, which means the window seat you booked may not be where you sit.
Weather cancels more often
Small aircraft on short runways in coastal locations are more weather sensitive than large jets at large airports.
Crosswinds are the usual limiting factor, and island runways are frequently short, single, and oriented by geography rather than by prevailing wind.
Visibility matters more where there is no instrument approach, which is the case at many small strips. Low cloud that a jet would land through will stop a small aircraft entirely.
And several island airports operate in daylight only, which means a delay past sunset becomes a cancellation regardless of conditions.
The practical figure worth internalising is that these routes cancel a meaningful fraction of the time in poor seasons, and any plan that cannot absorb a day's delay is a fragile plan.
The tide, occasionally
A genuine feature of a small number of places and worth knowing exists.
A handful of airfields use beaches as runways, which means the schedule is set by the tide and changes daily.
Flights there are scheduled around low water and shift by roughly fifty minutes a day, which is unlike any other timetable in aviation.
It is a curiosity and it also illustrates the general point that small island air services are constrained by physical conditions in a way that mainland aviation is not.
The booking considerations
Book the earliest flight of the day. Delays accumulate, aircraft rotate, and the first departure is by far the most reliable.
Do not book a tight connection onto anything. A missed connection from a small island flight is common and the next opportunity may be tomorrow.
Check whether the island flight is on the same ticket as an onward flight, because if it is not, a delay leaves you with no protection at all.
And find out whether there is a ferry alternative, its schedule and its duration, because that is the fallback and knowing it in advance is considerably better than researching it at a small terminal with poor signal.
What the airports are like
Small in a way that is genuinely pleasant.
Check-in frequently opens thirty minutes before departure and takes two minutes. Security is proportionate. The walk to the aircraft is across the apron.
There may be no facilities at all beyond a room with chairs, so arriving hungry or without water is a poor idea.
And there may be nobody there outside flight times, which matters if you arrive early or if a flight is cancelled and you need to arrange something.
The flight itself
Worth doing for its own sake, which is the compensation for everything above.
Low altitude, slow, with a view of the coast and the water that no jet provides. On a clear day it is among the better things available on a coastal trip.
It is also noisier and bumpier than people expect, since small aircraft at low altitude feel every thermal, and anybody prone to motion sickness should treat it accordingly.
The cockpit is frequently visible, which is a novelty for most passengers and is normal on these aircraft.
Whether to fly or take the boat
The choice on most islands, and I have come round to a rule.
Fly if the crossing is long and the sea is likely to be rough, or if time is genuinely short.
Take the boat if it is under a couple of hours, if the weather is settled, or if you are carrying a lot of luggage, because ferries have no meaningful weight limit and are dramatically cheaper.
And on the outward leg, take whichever is more reliable, because a delay at the start costs a day of the trip and a delay at the end costs a flight home.
What to carry in the cabin
Given that hold bags can be offloaded for weight, the packing logic changes.
Medication, documents, anything valuable and a change of clothes go in the small bag you keep with you, on the assumption that the main bag may arrive tomorrow.
That is standard advice for any flight and it is considerably more likely to matter here, where offloading is routine rather than exceptional.
Soft bags are also worth having, since they fit into irregular spaces in small holds and hard cases sometimes do not.