The Crossing
Small Plane Flights Miami to Royal Island
Royal Island is a private island of 430 acres off the northern tip of Eleuthera, and it has no runway on it at all. That is the fact this whole page is built around. A small plane charter Miami to Royal Island lands at North Eleuthera, nine nautical miles west across the water, and a boat covers the rest in about fifteen minutes.
North Eleuthera Airport carries the identifiers ELH and MYEH and an asphalt strip of 6,019 feet, running 07 and 25. It is a real airport with a border desk in the terminal, which is the second fact that shapes the day: you clear into the Bahamas where you land, not somewhere along the way.
Small plane flights to Royal Island from Miami therefore have one landing and one short boat, and the border is handled where you land.
The water between Florida and Eleuthera is about a hundred and eighty nautical miles wide and almost none of it has anything on it.
You leave the coast behind within a minute or two, cross the deep blue of the Gulf Stream and the colour changes under the wing long before the island appears. 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, and guests who would rather skip the boat entirely fly the same crossing by seaplane instead, which is a different aircraft and a different page.
Plan Your Royal Island Charter
How It Works
How a Small Plane Charter Miami to Royal Island Actually Works
Royal Island 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 North Eleuthera, you clear in at the desk in the terminal and a boat takes you the last nine miles to the island.
Which field the flight uses depends on the day and comes back with the quote, and either way the crew files both borders.
Plan Your Royal Island CharterThe Runway
The strip at North Eleuthera is the reason this crossing works on wheels
The runway runs 07 and 25 and measures 6,019 feet of asphalt, which is a long way more than a small plane needs. The airport sits on the mainland at the north end of Eleuthera and serves Harbour Island and Spanish Wells as well, so it is used to visitors who are going somewhere else by boat. There is no approach over terrain and nothing to circle.
The Border
Customs and immigration sit in the North Eleuthera terminal, not somewhere on the way
North Eleuthera is a Bahamian port of entry with customs and immigration on site, published as all days from 1400 to 2200Z with other hours on request. Which field your flight actually clears at depends on the routing and the hour, and it comes back with the quote.
On islands without one, an aircraft has to touch down at a port of entry first and carry on afterwards. Here it does not, because you were always landing there anyway. The crew files the manifest before departure and the travel documents are checked in Florida rather than at the counter. None of it is the guest's job.
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 Nine Miles
Getting onto Royal Island is a short ride and a boat
The island has no strip and no public ferry, so the last leg is a private boat from the North Eleuthera side. It is about nine nautical miles of protected water and roughly fifteen minutes.
Arranged with the flight rather than found on arrival, it is a transfer; arranged on the day it is a problem. Guests who would rather have no boat at all fly the same route by seaplane, which puts floats down inside the harbour itself.
Weather
A paved runway works on mornings when the water does not
A rough morning can make a water landing a bad idea while asphalt is entirely unbothered, and the boat leg across to Royal Island is short and sheltered rather than open ocean.
That is the practical argument for wheels on this crossing in winter 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 aircraft waits, which is what makes a Royal Island day trip a day trip
On a charter the airframe is yours for the block, so the return is set by you rather than by a timetable. Guests who want a night on the island tell us at the enquiry and the crew, the aircraft and the boat are planned around it. Nothing about the day is shared with anybody else's schedule.
Departure Points
Departure Points for Small Plane Flights to Royal Island 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 Royal Island
Chartering an aircraft is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Royal Island 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, so a small plane Miami to Royal Island ends at North Eleuthera and the boat is arranged with it. With a seaplane we can put you into the harbour instead.
- 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, the boat waiting at the dock when you land, ground transport on the Florida side. 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 at North Eleuthera, and the boat is already there.
On the Island
Where a Miami to Royal Island Small Plane Puts You Down
The aircraft puts you on the runway at North Eleuthera, on the mainland at the north end of the island, and the border desk is in the terminal beside the apron.
Everything below is reached from there, and the first step of every day is a short ride to the water and a boat of about fifteen minutes.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between, in the order they meet them.
Plan Your Royal Island CharterThe North Eleuthera Runway and the Border Desk
Where You LandThe strip runs 07 and 25 across the north end of the mainland, 6,019 feet of asphalt with water on both sides. From the air it looks like a line drawn between two bays and from the seat it is an ordinary landing, because a small plane needs a fraction of it.
Customs and immigration are in the terminal beside the general aviation apron, and which port of entry your flight uses depends on the routing on the day. That is the fact that shapes this whole route: you clear where you land, and Royal Island itself never has to be a port of entry.
Expect the formalities to take minutes rather than an hour. The crew has filed everything before departure and the desk keeps published 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.
The Ride Down to the Water
Ten Minutes
The airport is inland of the shore by a couple of miles and the dock the transfer uses is a short ride from the apron. It is the least interesting part of the day and the one that goes wrong when nobody has arranged it.
A car or a driver is at the aircraft when this is set up with the flight rather than on arrival, through ground transport. The same is true at the end of the day, in the other direction, against your own departure time rather than a schedule.
The Boat Across to Royal Island
Fifteen Minutes
Nine nautical miles of protected water separate the mainland from the island, and the crossing takes something like fifteen minutes. It is not open ocean: the run is inside the bank, in the lee of the land, so it holds up on mornings that would stop a landing on the water.
There is no public ferry, because the island is private. The boat is part of the arrangement rather than something found on arrival, and who is meeting you decides where it ties up and at what hour.
Guests who would rather not do this step at all fly the same route by seaplane into the harbour instead. We quote both against each other rather than selling one, because which is right depends on the date, the water and what the party is carrying.
The Harbour on the South Side
Where You Tie Up
The island's harbour is one of the most sheltered deep-water anchorages in the Bahamas and a classic hurricane hole, with a narrow entrance on the south side and high ground closing around it.
From the air on the way in it reads as a dark blue pocket cut into a green island, and from the water it is the reason anybody built anything here. It is also why yachts sit at Royal Island that would not sit anywhere else on this coast, which makes a yacht rendezvous a natural piece of the same day.
Four Hundred and Thirty Acres Ashore
What Is There
The island runs to 430 acres with more than ten miles of ocean front and white sand around most of it, and high points in the middle that see the whole northern end of Eleuthera at once.
It is private ground rather than a public island, so what happens ashore is your own arrangement rather than ours to promise. What we handle is getting you and everything you are carrying to the dock at the hour you chose. The destination page covers the island itself.
Spanish Wells, Five Miles East
The Fishing Fleet
St George's Cay sits about five nautical miles from the harbour and carries the largest commercial fishing fleet in the Bahamas, which is not a detail you expect on an island that size.
It is a working settlement rather than a resort: painted houses, boats everywhere and a crawfish season that runs the calendar. From the same dock the transfer uses it is a short run, and it is the usual answer when a party wants somewhere to eat that is not on the island.
Harbour Island and Dunmore Town
Eleven Miles On
Eleven nautical miles east of the harbour, past Current Cut and along the Devil's Backbone, is the pink sand and the town everybody has heard of. Reached by boat from the same water rather than by another flight.
That corner is why this part of Eleuthera has the reputation it does: two currents meeting in a narrow cut, a reef line that has wrecked ships for three hundred years and shallow water in every colour it comes in. The Harbour Island page covers what is there.
Coolers, Rods and Gear on Wheels
What Wheels Carry
This is the part of the day a runway changes most. 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.
A cooler for an island with no shop on it, rods, dive gear, a case of something for the house: all of it travels, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
Say what is coming at the enquiry rather than at the ramp and 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.
Onward From North Eleuthera by Air
Same Aircraft
North Eleuthera works as the first leg rather than the whole day, and clearing in here is what makes that easy: once you are through the desk, every leg after it is domestic. Which port of entry the day starts at depends on the routing and comes back with the quote.
The same airframe carries on south and west to Nassau, Grand Bahama, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day.
Where the next island has no strip of its own, that leg switches aircraft rather than cancelling the plan. The packaged version of a single day is the Royal Island getaway day trip 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 Royal Island?
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 Royal Island 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 Royal Island: The Strip, the Border Desk and the Boat
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the strip at North Eleuthera, the border desk that sits in the terminal, the boat that covers the last nine miles and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Miami to Royal Island by Small Plane: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Royal Island 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. A small aircraft flies low and slow: the Gulf Stream goes from navy to light, then the bank comes up turquoise. Eleuthera announces itself long before you are over it, a thin line of sand and pine a hundred and ten miles long with deep water on one side and shallow on the other. Six thousand and nineteen feet of asphalt means the crossing is on when the water is rough, the load is a weight question rather than a shape question, and the same airframe can carry on down the chain afterwards without anybody swapping aircraft. 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 Royal Island from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a small plane to Royal Island
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 Royal Island 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. Royal Island 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 Royal Island from Miami: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Royal Island crossing
A small plane from Miami to Royal Island 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 Royal Island: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Royal Island
A private small plane from Miami to Royal Island 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 Royal Island 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 Royal Island: Questions Answered
Can a plane land on Royal Island?
No. Royal Island is 430 acres of private ground with no runway on it, and the airstrip in its approved plans was only ever an alternative to the golf course. A small plane lands at North Eleuthera, nine nautical miles west, and a boat covers the last stretch in about fifteen minutes. A seaplane is the other option, because it can put floats down inside the harbour itself.
Where does the plane land for Royal Island?
At North Eleuthera Airport, identifiers ELH and MYEH, on the mainland at the north end of Eleuthera. The runway runs 07 and 25 and measures 6,019 feet of asphalt. Customs and immigration are in the terminal, so you clear where you land. From the apron it is a short ride to the water and a private boat across to the island.
How long is the flight from Miami to Royal Island?
The water is about a hundred and eighty nautical miles wide. Block time depends on the aircraft and which field you leave from and it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book. What actually sets the length of the day is not the flight, it is the two borders, the boat at the far end and how long the aircraft waits for you.
How do you get from North Eleuthera to Royal Island?
By boat, and it is arranged with the flight rather than found on arrival. The island lies about nine nautical miles west of the airport and the crossing takes roughly fifteen minutes in sheltered water. There is no public ferry, because the island is private. Tell us at the enquiry who is meeting you and the boat is on the same plan as the aircraft.
Do we clear customs at Royal Island?
No, and you do not need to. Royal Island has no border post, but North Eleuthera is a Bahamian port of entry with customs and immigration on site, and that is where the aircraft lands anyway.
Which port of entry your flight uses comes back with the quote. The crew files the manifest before departure and the formalities take minutes, and the desk keeps daytime hours, which is why an early slot is worth more than a late one.
Do I need a passport to fly to Royal Island?
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 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, such as non-United States passports.
Can you do Royal Island as a day trip from Miami?
Yes, and on a charter the aircraft is held for your block, so the return is set by you rather than by a timetable. Out in the morning, back in the evening, with both borders handled either side and the boat waiting at both ends of the day. Tell us at the enquiry if you would rather stay a night and the aircraft and the transfer are planned around that instead.
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, so four guests with dive tanks and four with overnight bags are different aircraft. Wheels carry more than floats do, which is one argument for this crossing. Say what is coming at the enquiry and the answer comes back with the quote rather than at the ramp.
Is Royal Island private?
Yes. It is privately held ground rather than a public island, which is why there is no scheduled ferry and no arriving without an arrangement. We fly you to North Eleuthera and put you on the boat; who is expecting you on the island is part of your own plan and worth telling us at the enquiry, because it decides where the boat ties up and at what hour.
What is around Royal Island if we have the day?
Spanish Wells is about five nautical miles east and works the largest commercial fishing fleet in the Bahamas. Harbour Island and Dunmore Town are eleven miles further on. Between them run Current Cut and the Devil's Backbone, which is why this corner is known for its water. All of it is reached by boat from the same dock the transfer uses.
What happens if the weather is bad on the day?
A paved runway tolerates a great deal that a water landing does not, which is the main practical argument for this aircraft in winter, and the boat leg is short and sheltered rather than open ocean. 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.
Should we fly a small plane or a seaplane to Royal Island?
It depends on the date, the water and what you are carrying. A small plane lands on asphalt in weather the water would not allow, takes more load and can carry on down the chain, at the cost of a fifteen minute boat. A seaplane lands in the harbour with no transfer at all. We quote both against each other rather than selling one.
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 Royal Island?
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 day costs, before anything is booked.
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