The Crossing
Small Plane Flights Miami to Mayaguana
Mayaguana is the last inhabited island before the Bahamas run out, and it has a full asphalt runway, which is the whole reason this flight is possible on wheels.
Mayaguana Airport carries the identifiers MYG and MYMM and a paved strip of 7,297 feet at eleven feet above the sea. A small charter plane lands there the same as it would at home, on a runway longer than anything the island's three hundred residents will ever need.
It is 513 statute miles southeast of downtown Miami, 446 nautical, and almost none of that is over land. You leave the Florida coast, cross the Gulf Stream, run the length of the bank past Long Island and Crooked Island and keep going until the chain stops.
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 the longest crossing we fly out of Miami on this aircraft and one of several Small Plane routes from the city. Where an island has no strip at all, the same trip is flown by seaplane instead, which is a different aircraft and a different page.
Plan Your Mayaguana Charter
How It Works
How a Small Plane Charter Miami to Mayaguana Actually Works
Mayaguana is a different country and the far end of it, so the day is two border crossings and a long leg in between. On this route both borders happen at an airport, so the paperwork stays simple. Nothing about it is yours except the passports.
The short version: you clear out of Florida, you fly the length of the Bahamas, you land at Mayaguana and you clear in at the desk beside the apron.
Plan Your Mayaguana CharterThe Runway
The asphalt at Mayaguana is the reason this crossing works on wheels
The strip runs 06/24 and measures 2,224 metres, which is 7,297 feet of asphalt at eleven feet above the sea. GlobalAir lists a partial closure at the 24 end leaving 4,800 feet usable, and even that is a great deal more than a small charter aircraft needs.
It sits about three miles northwest of Abraham's Bay, the main settlement, with nothing to circle and no terrain on the approach.
The Border
Customs and immigration sit at the Mayaguana airport, not somewhere on the way
The Bahamian customs authority lists Abraham's Bay as a port of entry, which is the part that matters for a private flight this far out. On islands without one an aircraft has to touch down at a port of entry first and carry on afterwards, which on a 513-mile leg would cost real time.
Here it does not happen. 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 strip into Abraham's Bay is a few minutes by road
The airport sits inland of the settlement and the drive is short, which is unusual out here: on most of the far islands the strip and the harbour are nowhere near each other.
A vehicle is arranged with the flight rather than found on arrival, because there is no rank waiting and no reason there should be. Betsy Bay and Pirate's Well are at the other end of the island, half an hour of road away.
Weather
Weather closes water long before it closes the Mayaguana runway
A rough morning can make a water landing a bad idea while a paved strip is entirely unbothered, and this far southeast the sea state is less predictable than it is on the short hops off the Florida coast.
That is the practical argument for wheels on this crossing 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 stays with you, which is what makes Mayaguana reachable at all
On a charter the airframe is yours for the block, so the return is set by you rather than by a timetable. That matters more here than anywhere: the only scheduled service is Bahamasair by way of Nassau, on its own days. Guests who want a week on the flats tell us at the enquiry and the aircraft is planned around it.
Departure Points
Departure Points for Small Plane Flights to Mayaguana 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 Mayaguana
Chartering an aircraft is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Mayaguana 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. On a run this far southeast range is part of the answer, so the shortlist is shorter than it is for a hop across the Gulf Stream.
- 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 vehicle waiting at the strip, ground transport to your lodge or back to the airport, a guide booked for the flats. 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 Mayaguana Small Plane Puts You Down
The aircraft puts you on the runway three miles northwest of Abraham's Bay, which is the settlement side of the island and the side with the border desk on it. Everything below is reached from there, and out here that means a vehicle arranged before you land rather than found afterwards.
What follows is what parties actually do with the days in between, in the order they ask for it.
Plan Your Mayaguana CharterThe Mayaguana Runway and the Border Desk
Where You LandThe strip runs 06/24 across the southern side of the island, 2,224 metres of asphalt, which is 7,297 feet, at eleven feet above the sea. GlobalAir lists a partial closure at the 24 end leaving 4,800 feet usable. Either figure is generous for a small charter aircraft.
The terminal is one building. Customs and immigration are inside it, which is the fact that shapes this whole route: the Bahamian customs authority lists Abraham's Bay among its ports of entry, so you clear where you land rather than at a fuel stop somewhere up the chain.
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 departure from Miami is worth more than a late one on a crossing this long.
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.
Abraham's Bay Itself
The Main Settlement
Abraham's Bay is the largest of the three settlements and it is still small: a shoreline road, a handful of buildings, a government dock and a bay behind a reef that runs for miles. The whole island holds a few hundred people.
That is not a drawback, it is the reason people fly here. There is no crowd at the strip and no queue for anything. A vehicle can be waiting when you land through ground transport, and on an island with this little traffic that is worth arranging in advance rather than on arrival.
The Flats Behind Abraham's Bay on Mayaguana
Bonefish Water
The bay is shallow, protected by reef along its outer edge, and behind it sit the flats and creek systems that most parties on this route actually come for.
They are lightly fished, because getting here has always been the hard part. Bonefish are the draw and they run large. Permit, triggerfish, barracuda and jacks come with the territory, and boats go outside the reef for the bluewater species.
Guides are local and few, so a week is booked around them . The wider subject is on the flats fishing page, and a trip built entirely around it is a fishing day by air. What matters for the flight is that rods and hard cases ride on wheels without a conversation about shape.
Betsy Bay and Pirate's Well
The Other End of the Island
Mayaguana is about 24 miles long and 2 to 6 miles wide, and the other two settlements sit at the northwest end of it. Betsy Bay faces the open water. Pirate's Well sits behind a long beach and takes its name from the well at the centre of it.
It is roughly half an hour of road from the airport, which on this island is the far side. There is a small resort out there and very little else, which is the point for the parties who choose it.
Nothing on Mayaguana is far from anything else in miles, but everything is far in the sense that there is no traffic and no rank. Transport is a thing you arrange, not a thing you find, and it goes on the same quote as the flight.
The Reef Off the North Shore of Mayaguana
Snorkel Depth
The reef runs along the outside of the bay and up the northern shore, and it is in the condition reefs are in when almost nobody visits them. Snorkelling is shore-and-boat rather than organised, and the drop-off is close enough to the beach in places to swim to.
There is no dive operation waiting at the dock, so tanks and gear come with you on the aircraft. That is a weight question rather than a shape question on wheels, which is one of the practical differences between this page and the seaplane crossing.
Booby Cay, East of Mayaguana
Empty Sand
Booby Cay sits off the eastern end of the island, an uninhabited scrap of sand and rock with clear water around it and nobody on it. Boats run out from the bay when the weather allows.
It is the picture people have in mind when they imagine an empty Bahamian cay, and out here it genuinely is empty rather than empty at nine in the morning. A landing on the beach is not part of this aircraft's day: that is the seaplane's job, and it is one of the few things a runway cannot do for you.
Rods, Tanks and a Cooler on a Small Plane
What Wheels Carry
This is the part of the trip a runway changes most, and on a 513-mile leg it changes it twice. Load on a small aircraft is a weight question rather than a bag count, and a wheeled airframe has more of it to give than floats do.
Rod tubes, dive tanks, a cooler for the boat, provisions for a week in a house with one shop on the island: all of it travels, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
Fuel for a leg this long takes its share first, so the answer comes with the quote rather than at the ramp. See the baggage guidance for how the trade between passengers and weight actually works.
Anything larger than luggage is a different service on the same runway and that is island logistics rather than a charter with extra bags.
Where You Stay on Mayaguana
Very Few Rooms
Beds on the island are counted in dozens rather than hundreds. There is a small beachfront place at the northwest end and a handful of guest houses and rentals around the settlements, and in high season that is the constraint on a trip rather than the aircraft.
Book the room first and the flight around it, not the other way round. Tell us where you have landed a bed when you send the dates and the ground transport to it goes on the same quote, which matters on an island where nothing is waiting at the strip.
Onward Down the Southern Chain by Small Plane
Same Aircraft
Mayaguana works as the anchor of a longer trip rather than a single stop. Clearing in here is what makes that easy: once you are through the desk, every leg after it is domestic.
The same airframe carries on to Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Island or San Salvador, all of them within an hour or so of here and none of them requiring a second border.
That is what turns one island into island hopping rather than a there-and-back. Where the next island has no strip of its own, that leg switches aircraft rather than cancelling the plan. The packaged version of a short visit is the Mayaguana getaway and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book a Small Plane Charter from Miami to Mayaguana?
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 trip costs, before anything is booked.
Add-Ons
Small Plane Flights to Mayaguana 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 Mayaguana: The Asphalt Strip, the Border Desk and Booby Cay
Everything above is the trip. What follows is the detail behind it: the runway at the far end, the border that sits beside it, the five hundred miles in between and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Miami to Mayaguana by Small Plane: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Mayaguana 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 513 statute miles southeast of downtown Miami, 446 nautical, and almost none of that is over land. The flats and creeks behind Abraham's Bay are the reason most parties book this crossing, and a fishing week is a fixed block: out on a Saturday, back the next one, guides and a vehicle arranged before you land. You cross the Gulf Stream out of Florida, the blue goes from navy to something with light in it, and then the bank comes up underneath in bands of turquoise you can see the bottom through. 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 Mayaguana from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a small plane to Mayaguana
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 Mayaguana 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. Customs on the way home is the second question and it is the crew's, not yours. 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 Mayaguana from Miami: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Mayaguana crossing
A small plane from Miami to Mayaguana 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 Mayaguana: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a long weekend or something to celebrate on Mayaguana
A private small plane from Miami to Mayaguana 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 Mayaguana charter is for. The flats and creeks behind Abraham's Bay are the reason most parties book this crossing, and a fishing week is a fixed block: out on a Saturday, back the next one, guides and a vehicle arranged before you land. 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 Mayaguana: Questions Answered
Can a plane land on Mayaguana?
Yes. Mayaguana Airport has an asphalt runway of 7,297 feet, identifiers MYG and MYMM, which is far more than a small charter aircraft needs. It sits about three miles northwest of Abraham's Bay and is also the border post, so a private flight lands and clears in the same place. GlobalAir lists a partial closure at one end leaving 4,800 feet usable, still generous for the type.
Do I need a passport to fly to Mayaguana?
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 Mayaguana?
Abraham's Bay lies about 513 statute miles southeast of downtown Miami, 446 nautical, which makes this the longest crossing we fly out of the city on a 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. It is a morning, not a hop.
Where does the small plane land on Mayaguana?
At Mayaguana Airport, inland of Abraham's Bay at the southern 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 few minutes by road into the settlement. Betsy Bay and Pirate's Well sit at the far end of the island, about half an hour away.
Do we have to clear customs somewhere else on the way?
No, and that is what makes this route simpler than the distance suggests. Abraham's Bay is on the Bahamian customs list of ports of entry, so the aircraft flies Miami to Mayaguana direct and clears at the desk beside the apron. Islands without a port of entry need a landing somewhere on the way first, which on a leg this long costs real time.
Can you do Mayaguana as a day trip from Miami?
You can, but it is the wrong shape for it. At 513 statute miles each way the flying alone fills a large part of the day, and the island rewards the time you give it rather than the time you save.
Most parties fly out for a long weekend or a fishing week. If you want a day out of Miami by small plane, one of the islands just off the Florida coast is the better answer.
How much baggage can we take on a small plane to Mayaguana?
It is a weight question rather than a bag count, and on a leg this long fuel takes its share first. A small aircraft trades payload against passengers and range, so four guests with dive tanks and four with soft bags are different aircraft. Say what is coming at the enquiry and the answer comes back with the quote rather than at the ramp.
Can we bring rods, dive gear and a cooler?
Yes, and most parties on this route do. Hard rod tubes, tanks, fins and a cooler all travel regularly on wheels, which is one of the things a runway buys you over a water landing. Tell us what is coming and roughly what it weighs when you send the dates, including anything with a battery in it, and it is planned into the airframe.
Can we fly on to another island from Mayaguana afterwards?
Yes. Because you have already cleared into the Bahamas at Abraham's Bay the onward legs are domestic, so the same airframe can carry on to Acklins, Crooked Island or Long Island without a second border.
That makes Mayaguana a natural anchor for a longer trip through the southern chain rather than only an end point. Tell us the shape of the trip and it is quoted as one movement.
What happens if the weather is bad on the day of the Mayaguana 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 crossing this exposed. 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.
How do people normally get to Mayaguana?
By airline, through Nassau. Bahamasair serves the island on its own schedule, which usually means a connection and a night in Nassau at one end or both. That is the comparison worth making with a charter: not fare against fare, but how many days of the trip are spent getting there. A direct crossing from Miami removes the connection entirely.
What is there to do on Mayaguana?
That is the island's own question rather than the flight's and the Mayaguana destination page covers it properly. In short: bonefish flats and creeks behind Abraham's Bay, reef and snorkelling off the north shore, Booby Cay at the eastern end and a great deal of empty beach. 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 Mayaguana?
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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