The rules:
The flight origin and destination are in the continental United States. No destinations in Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, or US posessions in the Caribbean.
The flight is on a jet that can carry 50 or more passengers, and not a commuter or turboprop plane.
The flight is non-stop. The flight can be part of a leg on an even longer fight.
Can you fly non-stop between Portland, Maine and Spokane, Washington? What about Burlington, Vermont and Yuma, Arizona?
Does military transport aircraft count?
Not unless a non-milittary employee civilian can book a flight on it.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there is no cross country flights from small metropolitan area to another that seat at least 50. My guess is that your best bet will be flights from say, Boise to Fargo or something. Even then I doubt you will find many 50+ seats. All WAG though.
Wait, would Omaha to Vegas count? That isn’t cross country, but its pretty far and niether city is that big.
Unless you mean it only to apply to those two examples, you need to specify the question more precisely.
For instance Spokane, WA to San Diego, CA is 1029 miles, but Providence, RI to Austin, TX is 1667. Then again Portland, OR to Newark, NJ is 2429 miles. Is Portland too big? What about Austin, or even Spokane?
I think I’d have tto use my judgement. A lot of it might be the flight that would generate the largest the “gee, why the hell would people fly between those two cities?” … a long flight between two relatively small non-hub airports.
The Providence - Austin one seemed odd to me (unless one or both is a hub and I didn’t know it.)
Some other ones :
Brownsville, TX - Cincinnati, OH (1172 mi.)
Spokane, WA - Des Moines, IA (1423 mi.)
I put this to my brother, a Vice President with American Airlines.
His response:
No clue, although I would guess CVG (Cincinatti) to SLC (Salt Lake City).