The Crossing
Small Plane Flights Miami to Great Exuma
Great Exuma sits at the southern end of the Exuma chain and it has a full runway, so this island is flown on wheels rather than floats.
Exuma International carries the identifiers GGT and MYEF and an asphalt strip of 7,051 feet at Moss Town. That is an airport, not a strip: a small charter aircraft lands there the same way it would at home, and so does everything larger.
It is a long way further than the near islands, about 276 nautical miles from Miami, and almost all of it is water.
You leave the Florida coast within a minute or two and the colour under the wing works through the deep blue of the Gulf Stream, the pale banks of the middle Bahamas and then the greens of the Exuma flats. What that runs in block time depends on the aircraft and the departure point and it comes back with the quote.
Everything between those two moments is ours: the departure point in Miami, the aircraft and the crew, both border filings and the travel documents the Bahamas wants before you leave Florida. Your party brings passports and a bag.
This is one of several Small Plane routes from the city. The cays further north up the chain are their own crossing and have their own page, and where an island has no strip at all the same trip is flown by seaplane instead.
Plan Your Great Exuma Charter
How It Works
How a Small Plane Charter Miami to Great Exuma Actually Works
Great Exuma is a different country, so a day there is two border crossings in one afternoon. On this route both of them happen at an airport, so it stays simple. Nothing about the paperwork is yours except the passports.
The short version: you clear out of Florida, you land at Moss Town, you clear in at the desk beside the apron and you are on the island.
Plan Your Great Exuma CharterThe Runway
The runway at Moss Town is the reason this island works on wheels
The strip runs 12/30 and measures 7,051 feet of asphalt, which is a great deal more than a small plane needs and enough for anything else you might want to send. It sits at Moss Town on the northwest side of Great Exuma, with the settlement of George Town down the road to the south. There is nothing to circle and no approach over terrain.
The Border
Customs and immigration sit at the Exuma airport, not somewhere on the way
Exuma International is an airport of entry, which is the part that matters for a private flight. On islands without one an aircraft has to touch down at a port of entry first and carry on afterwards. Here it does not. You land where the desk is, the crew files the manifest before departure and the travel documents are checked in Florida rather than at the counter.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami is the quieter of the two borders
Outbound from Florida the filing is done for you and the aircraft departs from a general aviation ramp rather than a terminal. You arrive at the departure point close to the boarding time, not two hours before it.
Coming home is the step people forget: a return from the islands clears United States customs at a designated field and the crew plans the routing around that not around the shortest line.
The Last Mile
Getting from the apron to George Town is a road, not a boat
The airport is on the northwest side and the town is south of it along the Queen's Highway, so the last part of the journey is a drive rather than a ferry.
That is the practical difference between this island and the small cays: a car or a golf cart can be waiting at the apron through ground transport and it takes you to a door, not to a dock.
Weather
Weather closes water before it closes the Exuma runway
A rough morning can make a water landing a bad idea while a paved strip is entirely unbothered. That is the practical argument for wheels on a crossing this long and it is the reason we quote both. What the aircraft needs on the day is a crew decision, taken against published minimums, never a preference.
The Block
The small plane waits, which is what lets an Exuma day be one day
On a charter the airframe is yours for the block, so the return is set by you rather than by a timetable. At this distance most parties stay a night or a weekend, and that is a line in the enquiry rather than a different product. Nothing about the day is shared with anybody else's schedule.
Departure Points
Departure Points for Small Plane Flights to Great Exuma from Miami
A small plane uses short fields that a jet cannot, so the departure point is chosen for your ground time. These are the four we use around Miami. Select one to see exactly where it sits.
Miami Executive
Miami Executive Airport, TMB, Kendall
Kendall-Tamiami in the south west of the county and the field both small planes sit at, the land aircraft and the amphibian. A charter that starts here starts without a positioning leg, which is what decides an early morning on a same day return. It is also the shortest drive from the south and west of the county.
Opa-locka Executive
Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, OPF
The executive airport north west of the city, with private terminal handling and the point most Bahamas day trips are dispatched from. It is also where a return from the islands clears US customs. That makes it the default on a Bahamas day unless the drive is against you.
Miami International
Miami International Airport, MIA
A pickup rather than a base, for a party already at MIA that wants the onward leg to leave from the same airport. Arranged per flight and confirmed with the operator before it is quoted. It costs ground time, because a commercial field moves on its own schedule.
Fort Lauderdale Executive
Fort Lauderdale Executive, FXE
Fort Lauderdale Executive, the Broward departure, with its own federal inspection station for the return from the islands. The usual choice when the group is north of Miami and the drive south would cost more time than the flight saves. The return clears there as readily as it does at Opa-locka.
How to Charter
Charter a Small Plane from Miami to Great Exuma
Chartering an aircraft is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Great Exuma Charter- 01
Contact Us
Write to us on WhatsApp or by email. Send your dates, how many guests, where you are coming from and where you want to travel. Tell us the hour you would like to leave. A small plane runs airport to airport. Your pickup can also be a marina, a hotel dock or a beach. With a seaplane we can collect you there.
- 02
Get Aircraft and Prices Back
We check what is free on your date and send the small planes that fit. Seats, baggage and flight time for each one. Every aircraft costs a little differently, so we can find the best fit for you.
- 03
Confirm and Pay
You pick the aircraft, and we set the pickup point and the landing site. Then everything around the flight. Catering on board, a car or a golf cart waiting when you land, ground transport to your hotel or back to the airport. Flowers if the day is a special one. You approve it, you pay, and your boarding time, departure point and everything included come back to you.
- 04
Just Arrive 30 Minutes Early
You will have no terminal and no queue. Just make sure you are there 30 minutes before. Then you take off, land right at your destination, and enjoy the day.
On the Island
Where a Miami to Great Exuma Small Plane Puts You Down
The aircraft puts you on the runway at Moss Town, on the northwest side of the island, and the border desk is inside the building you walk into off the apron. Everything below is reached from there by road rather than by boat, which is the thing that makes Great Exuma different from the cays above it.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours after they land, in the order they ask for it.
Plan Your Great Exuma CharterExuma International and the Border Desk
Where You LandThe strip runs 12/30 across the flat ground at Moss Town, 7,051 feet of asphalt on the northwest side of the island. It is a proper airport rather than a cleared line in the scrub, and a small charter aircraft uses a fraction of it.
Customs and immigration are in the terminal, which is the fact that shapes this whole route: Exuma International is an airport of entry, so you clear where you land rather than somewhere along the way.
Expect the formalities to take minutes rather than an hour. The crew has filed everything before departure and the desk keeps daytime hours, which is the one reason an early slot is worth more than a late one.
Say at the enquiry if anyone is travelling on a passport other than a United States one, because that is the case worth flagging before the day rather than at the counter.
The Road South to George Town
The Drive In
From the apron the Queen's Highway runs south and east towards George Town. It is one road, it follows the coast for most of it and there is water on both sides of you for long stretches.
This is the part of Great Exuma that nobody photographs and everybody remembers: the drive in. A car or a golf cart can be waiting when you land through ground transport, and from that moment the island is yours to move around without a boat, a schedule or a second aircraft.
George Town and Elizabeth Harbour
The Main Settlement
George Town is the main settlement and the administrative centre of the Exumas, and it sits on Elizabeth Harbour, a long sheltered stretch of water on the eastern side of the island. The harbour is the reason the town exists.
Through the winter months hundreds of boats lie at anchor in it, and the sailing regatta once a year fills the place completely. That is worth knowing when you pick a week: on those dates the island is spoken for a long way ahead.
Everything a visitor needs day to day is here rather than spread along the island, and it is a short run from the airport by road. What is worth doing in the town itself is the island's own subject and the Great Exuma destination page covers it.
Stocking Island Across the Harbour
Ten Minutes by Boat
Stocking Island lies directly across Elizabeth Harbour from George Town, a short boat ride from the town side. It is about four miles long and almost entirely beach and low hill.
It is the walking half of a Great Exuma stay: trails run the length of it, the ocean side has surf and the harbour side is flat and clear, and the snorkelling in between is the reason most parties go across at all. Boats run over through the day.
The Beaches Along the Queen's Highway
On the RoadGreat Exuma runs thirty-seven miles from end to end and the road runs with it, so the beaches here are reached by car rather than by boat. That is unusual in this part of the Bahamas and it is the practical argument for landing on wheels.
Three Sisters Beach, named for the rocks standing off the shore, is north of George Town along the highway. Others are unnamed turnoffs with nothing on them at all. On a weekday you will have most of them to yourself, and the water is shallow and warm a long way out.
Little Exuma Over the Bridge
The Southern End
Great Exuma is joined to Little Exuma by a bridge at its southern end, so the island carries on without a ferry. It is a short drive past George Town and the road keeps going.
The Tropic of Cancer runs across this end of the chain and the beach named for it is on Little Exuma, a long pale curve reached down a track from the road. There are salt ponds, a couple of settlements and very little else, which is the point of driving down there.
Emerald Bay and the North End
The Marina Side
North of the airport the island narrows and the coast opens onto the deep water of Exuma Sound. Emerald Bay sits on that side, with a marina cut into the shore and the golf and resort ground around it. It is the closest part of the island to the runway, which matters if you are arriving late or leaving early.
Beyond it the road carries on north to Barraterre at the top of the island, where the settlement ends and the cays begin. Anything you want waiting when you land, from a car to a table, is arranged with the flight through custom requests rather than after you arrive.
Onward to the Cays by Small Plane
Same Aircraft
Great Exuma works as the base rather than the whole trip, and clearing in here is what makes that easy: once you are through the desk at Moss Town, every leg after it is domestic. The chain runs north from the top of the island for a long way, and the well-known cays sit up in the middle of it rather than down here.
Big Major Cay, where the pigs swim, is about fifty miles north of George Town, which is a couple of hours in a fast boat and about twenty minutes in the air. Those cays are their own crossing and have their own page.
The same airframe carries on to Staniel Cay, Nassau or Long Island, and where the next island has no strip of its own that leg switches to a water landing rather than cancelling the plan. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book a Small Plane Charter from Miami to Great Exuma?
Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. You get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the day costs, before anything is booked.
Add-Ons
Small Plane Flights to Great Exuma Add-Ons
Tell us which of these you want when you send your dates and they go on the same quote as the flight.
In Detail
Small Plane Miami to Great Exuma: The Runway, the Border Desk and the Road South
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the strip at Moss Town, the border desk beside it, the road that runs south from there and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Miami to Great Exuma by Small Plane: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Great Exuma small plane
The crossing is not dead time between two airports. A small plane crosses low enough to see what is under it, so the water is part of the day rather than something to sit through. It is a long way further than the near islands, about 276 nautical miles from Miami, and almost all of it is water. The island runs thirty-seven miles from end to end and is joined to Little Exuma by a bridge at the southern end, so from the air you are looking at one long curve of land with the deep Exuma Sound on one side and pale water on the other. You leave the Florida coast within a minute or two and the colour under the wing works through the deep blue of the Gulf Stream, the pale banks of the middle Bahamas and then the greens of the Exuma flats. Every seat is a window seat on an aircraft this size, and the same is true of scenic flights of this size, so nobody watches the crossing over someone's shoulder. Other small plane routes from Miami fly the same way.
Small Plane to Great Exuma from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a small plane to Great Exuma
Nobody hands you a timetable on a charter. The day is built around the hour you name. You name the hour you want to lift off, the hour you want to be standing on Great Exuma and which water in the city suits your morning. The aircraft belongs to your party for the day, so all three are your decision rather than a departure somebody else set, and a change the week before is a message to us. If the drive is shorter the other way, the same day runs out of Fort Lauderdale. Half an hour before the lift-off is the whole of the check-in. Your party walks from the car to the aircraft, the bags go on in front of you, and the list for that flight carries your names and nobody else's. Nothing about the morning waits on a stranger. Great Exuma is a different country, so a day there is two border crossings in one afternoon. And the crossing is a reason in itself. The windows are deep and the aircraft crosses low, so there is room for everybody to sit and watch the water change instead of taking turns at one of them.
Small Plane Charter to Great Exuma from Miami: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Great Exuma crossing
A small plane from Miami to Great Exuma crosses an international border twice in a day. Entry into the Bahamas asks for a declaration filed from Florida, clearance at a port of entry on arrival and a US return filed before you leave, which is what sets where you may land coming home. Passports for everyone, children included, per the travel documents guidance. What may travel sits in the baggage guidance. That same filing sets where you land coming home: a return from the islands clears at None, so a day that began on the water finishes on a ramp and a departure moved by weather runs under the weather and delays policy. If the party changes before the flight, the crew refiles. A name added, a name dropped: that is a message to us rather than a problem for you.
Small Plane Miami Great Exuma: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Great Exuma
A private small plane from Miami to Great Exuma is booked when the day is worth marking: a birthday, a proposal, a graduation, a weekend away with the people who matter. The flight is short enough that the occasion, not the travelling, is what the day is about. That is what a small plane Miami Great Exuma charter is for. Three of the four sit well inside the county, which is the part that decides how early the morning starts: a field twenty minutes from the house is worth more than five minutes of flight time saved in the air. Some parties fly over for the day and are home the same evening. Others stay on and book the return for the day they want. Both are the same charter, and the whole group travels together on one booking. If there is something to celebrate, say so when you book: catering, a private chef, premium beverages and flowers travel with you. Everything is in place before you board in Miami.
Questions
Small Plane Charter Miami to Great Exuma: Questions Answered
Can a plane land on Great Exuma?
Yes. Exuma International at Moss Town has an asphalt runway of 7,051 feet, identifiers GGT and MYEF, which is far more than a small charter aircraft needs. It is also the border post, so a private flight lands and clears in the same place. From the apron the Queen's Highway runs south to George Town and north towards the top of the island.
Do I need a passport to fly to Great Exuma?
Yes, for every passenger including children. The Bahamas is a different country and a private aircraft does not change that. We take the passport details once at the enquiry and file the manifest for both sides before departure. The travel documents page lists what each passenger hands over and by when, including the cases that need more notice.
How long is the flight from Miami to Great Exuma?
The distance is about 276 nautical miles, which makes this one of the longer crossings flown out of Miami and roughly an hour and three quarters in the air on a typical small plane. The block time depends on the aircraft and which field you leave from and it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book, along with where the aircraft takes fuel.
What is the best way to get to Great Exuma?
By air, and on a charter it is a direct flight rather than a connection through Nassau. A small plane lands on the runway at Moss Town, which is dependable in any weather the water is not, and the border desk is in the same building.
A seaplane can put you on the water closer to a house or a boat instead. We quote the two against each other.
Where does the flight land on Great Exuma?
At Exuma International, which sits at Moss Town on the northwest side of the island. Customs and immigration are there, so you clear on arrival rather than somewhere on the way. From the apron it is a drive south along the Queen's Highway to George Town and Elizabeth Harbour, and a car or golf cart can be waiting when you land.
Can you take a day trip to Great Exuma?
You can and some parties do, but at this distance most people stay at least a night. On a charter the aircraft is held for your block, so the return is set by you rather than by a timetable, and a same-day return simply means an early departure. Tell us at the enquiry which shape you want and the aircraft is planned around it.
How much baggage can we take on a small plane?
It is a weight question rather than a bag count. A small aircraft trades payload against passengers and fuel, and on a leg this long the fuel side of that sum matters more than it does on a short crossing.
Say what is coming at the enquiry, including clubs, rods and anything with a battery in it, and the answer comes back with the quote rather than at the ramp.
Is Great Exuma good for families?
It suits families who are staying rather than passing through. The water is shallow and warm along most of the island, the road runs the whole length of it so nothing is hard to reach by car or cart, and the beaches are quiet on weekdays. Children need passports like everybody else. On a private aircraft there is no terminal and no queue at either end.
Can we fly on to the cays from Great Exuma?
Yes. Because you have already cleared into the Bahamas at Moss Town, every leg after it is domestic. The cays further north up the chain are their own crossing and have their own page, and where one has no strip the leg switches aircraft rather than cancelling the plan. Tell us the shape of the trip at the enquiry and it is quoted as one movement.
What happens if the weather is bad on the day of the Exuma flight?
A paved runway tolerates a great deal that a water landing does not, which is the main practical argument for this aircraft on a long crossing. If conditions are genuinely below minimums the crew moves or stands down the flight and the weather and delays policy says what that means for your booking. That call is the crew's, made against published limits, never a preference.
Is it cheaper than a scheduled flight?
No and it is not trying to be. A scheduled seat is cheaper because somebody else chose the time and the aircraft is shared, and to Great Exuma it often means a connection and a wait. Charter buys the block: your departure, your return, your party only, your load. On a trip this length that usually means a whole extra day on the island.
What do we do once we are there?
That is the island's own question rather than the flight's and the Great Exuma destination page covers it properly. In short: George Town and Elizabeth Harbour, Stocking Island across the water, the beaches along the Queen's Highway, and Little Exuma over the bridge at the southern end. Anything you want arranged before you land is set up with the flight.
Can I bring a pet on a small plane charter?
Yes, pets travel in the cabin with you. The one thing we ask is that you tell us at the enquiry, with the type of animal and its weight, so the seating and the load plan are right from the start.
Next Step
Ready to Book a Small Plane Charter Miami to Great Exuma?
Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. You get back the aircraft, the boarding time and what the whole trip costs, before anything is booked.
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