The Crossing
Small Plane Charter from Miami to South Andros Bahamas
South Andros has its own asphalt runway and its own border desk, which together are the reason this flight is a simple one. South Andros Airport carries the identifiers TZN and MYAK and a strip of 5,325 feet. A small charter plane lands there on wheels, the same as it would at home, and the customs officer is in the building beside the apron.
Miami to South Andros Airport is about 198 statute miles, roughly 172 nautical, and almost every one of them is open water. You leave the coast within a minute or two, cross the deep blue of the Gulf Stream and then the bank comes up underneath in bands of turquoise. Block time comes back with the quote. Everything between is ours: the departure point in Miami, the aircraft and crew, both border filings and the travel documents the Bahamas wants. Your party brings passports and a bag.
South Andros is the southern third of the largest island in the Bahamas and one of several Small Plane routes from the city. The northern strips are a different day and a different page, Miami to Andros, and where a party would rather come down on the water instead there is a seaplane to South Andros.
Plan Your South Andros Charter
Miami to South Andros Small Plane
How a Small Plane Charter Miami to South Andros Bahamas Actually Works
A Miami to South Andros small plane charter involves more than the flight across the Gulf Stream. Here is what every flight includes, from your first message to the moment you step out at South Andros.
Plan Your South Andros CharterDistance and Runway
One Hundred Seventy Two Nautical Miles to South Andros Airport
Miami to South Andros Airport is about 198 statute miles, roughly 172 nautical, and almost every one of them is open water. The strip sits behind the settlement. The block time follows the departure point and the aircraft.
The table sits on all small plane routes from Miami. For a different view of the same crossing, the helicopter to South Andros Bahamas and the private jet to South Andros Bahamas cover the same line.
The Whole Aircraft
One Party, One Aircraft, and No Other Passengers Aboard
The cabin goes to one party rather than being sold by the seat, so a week at a lodge and a day on the flats are the same booking with a different return. Nothing is shared with anybody else's schedule. A larger group flies a second small plane.
Where the Aircraft Lands
Five Thousand Feet, and One Road the Whole Length
The runway runs 10/28 with 5,325 feet of asphalt at 98 feet wide behind the settlement on South Andros, with no terrain on the approach. A single road runs the island from Driggs Hill down through Deep Creek, The Bluff and Kemps Bay to Mars Bay, so the transfer is a drive: ground transport.
Both Borders
Manifest, Passports, and Both Borders Filed Well Ahead
The Bahamian customs authority lists South Andros Airport among its airports of entry, so you land where the desk is and no island in front of it needs a stop. Everything is filed before the aircraft moves rather than at a counter. Details are in the travel documents guidance.
On Board and Ashore
Catering, Celebrations, and What Travels to South Andros
Bonefish lodges feed their own guests, but a day on the flats or a house on the road is a different matter, so catering and a private chef load in Miami. Rods, coolers and soft bags travel within the baggage guidance, and a milestone is a custom experience.
How Long the Day Runs
Day Trip to Multi-Day South Andros Itinerary
The airframe is held for your block rather than a departure slot, so the return is set by you. Guests who want a week at a lodge say so at the enquiry and the crew and the aircraft are planned around it. Weather and delays is the only thing that moves it.
Departure Points
Departure Points for Small Plane Charter to South Andros Bahamas 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, the field where the small planes wait for your date. 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 South Andros Bahamas
Chartering an aircraft takes four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your South Andros 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 lodge 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 South Andros Bahamas Small Plane Puts You Down
The plane is where a South Andros day really begins. A flight over the Gulf Stream, and then a single road from Driggs Hill down to Mars Bay, with bonefish on the flats beside the road and blue holes inland. Below is what a day out there can look like.
Plan Your South Andros CharterThe South Andros Airport Strip and the Border Desk
Where You LandThe runway runs east to west behind the settlement, 5,325 feet of asphalt, with the bank on one side and the low green of the island on the other. From the seat it is an ordinary landing, because a small plane needs a fraction of it. The terminal is one building with customs and immigration inside it, which shapes this whole route: South Andros Airport is an airport of entry, so you clear where you land. 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.
Driggs Hill at the North End of South Andros
Ten Minutes Up the Road
North of the strip the road runs up to Driggs Hill, the settlement at the top of the southern island, where the ferry dock for Mangrove Cay is and where several of the places people stay sit along the shore. It is the nearest thing on this island to an arrival point, and it is ten minutes from the apron rather than an hour. A car or a cart can be waiting when you land through ground transport, which on an island with no rank at the airport is worth arranging before you fly rather than after.
Kemps Bay, the Boatyard and the Conch House
The Main Settlement
Kemps Bay is the largest settlement on South Andros and the one with the boatyard, where the wooden sloops that fish this coast are still built and repaired on the beach. The much-photographed house built out of conch shells is here too, and so is most of what passes for a high street on an island of a few thousand people. It is a half hour south of the strip on the same road, which is a genuine outing rather than a detour.
The Road South to Mars Bay
The End of the Island
Past Kemps Bay the road carries on through Long Bay Cays to Mars Bay, the southernmost settlement on Andros and close to the last road on this side of the Bahamas before the bank runs out. The reason to drive it is the water beside it. The creeks and the sand off this end are the least visited part of an island that is already the quietest of the big ones, and the beaches down here are usually empty in the plain sense of nobody else being on them.
The Bonefish Flats Along the Eastern Shore
Why Most Guests Come
Andros is called the bonefish capital of the world and the flats off the southern end are a large part of the reason. Miles of shin-deep sand and turtle grass on the east side, fished on foot and from a skiff. Guests fly in with rod tubes and wading boots and are on the water the same morning, which is the practical argument for a runway on this island: gear travels by weight on wheels and the transfer from the apron is a drive. See the baggage guidance for how the trade between passengers and weight actually works, and flats fishing for the day itself.
Blue Holes Inland From the Strip
Fresh Water and SaltAndros has more blue holes than anywhere else on earth, well over a hundred and seventy on land and dozens more offshore, and a number of the best known ones sit in the pine forest within reach of the southern road. The inland ones are fresh at the top and salt below, cold, dark and much deeper than they look. The ocean ones lie out beyond the reef. You see both from the air on the way in, which is a good reason to ask for a window on the left going down.
Rods, Coolers and Provisions on a Small Plane
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. Rod tubes, dive tanks, a cooler for the skiff, a case of something for the house: all of it travels, within the payload for the aircraft on the day. On an island where the shops are small and the mailboat is weekly, that matters more than it does on a short hop. Say what is coming at the enquiry rather than at the ramp. 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 Up Andros and Across the Bank
Same Aircraft
South Andros works as the first leg rather than the whole trip and clearing in here is what makes that easy: once you are through the desk at South Andros Airport, every leg after it is domestic. The bights cut Andros into three and there is no road between them, so the aircraft is how you reach Mangrove Cay or the northern strips at Andros Town and Nicholls Town. East across the bank it is Nassau and Staniel Cay and the Exumas, which 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 South Andros 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 South Andros Bahamas?
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 Charter to South Andros Bahamas 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 South Andros Bahamas: The South Andros Airport Strip, the Border Desk and the Flats
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the strip at the far end, the border that sits beside it, the water crossing and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Miami to South Andros Bahamas by Small Plane: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
A window each on a Miami to South Andros Bahamas 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. The last part of the run down the east side of Andros is the part people remember. 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. 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. Parties who prefer a jet to a small plane book a private jet charter out of Miami.
Private Plane Charter from Miami to South Andros Bahamas: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a small plane to South Andros Bahamas
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 South Andros Bahamas 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 carries your names only. A private plane rental from Miami to South Andros Bahamas works the same way. 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. Guests who would rather fly rotors than wings book a helicopter charter out of Miami.
Small Plane Charter to South Andros Bahamas from Miami: The Crew Handles Both Borders
Passports are all your party carries on a South Andros Bahamas crossing
A small plane from Miami to South Andros Bahamas 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 also sets where you land coming home, and the landing point comes back to you with the quote, settled before anyone boards. 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. The options for this crossing are set out together in Flights from Miami to South Andros Bahamas.
Private Plane Charter Miami to South Andros Bahamas: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A small private plane rental from Miami to South Andros Bahamas for a day or a weekend
A private small plane from Miami to South Andros Bahamas 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 private plane charter Miami to South Andros Bahamas is for. Most people who cross here are marking something, and the date comes first. 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. The same days can also be flown as a seaplane charter to South Andros Bahamas, like any seaplane charter out of Miami.
Questions
Small Plane Charter Miami to South Andros Bahamas: Questions Answered
Can a plane land on South Andros?
Yes. South Andros Airport has an asphalt runway of 5,325 feet, identifiers TZN and MYAK, which is more than a small charter aircraft needs. It is also an airport of entry, so a private flight lands and clears customs in the same place. The one road on the island runs past it, north to Driggs Hill and south to Mars Bay.
Do I need a passport to fly to South Andros?
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 South Andros?
The distance is about 198 statute miles, roughly 172 nautical, almost all of it over water. The 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 and how long the aircraft waits for you.
Where does the flight land on South Andros?
At South Andros Airport, behind the settlement in the middle of the island's western shore. Customs and immigration are in the building beside the apron, so you clear on arrival rather than somewhere on the way. From there it is a drive: Driggs Hill lies to the north and Kemps Bay and Mars Bay to the south along the same road.
Which airport on Andros is closest to my lodge?
That depends which third of the island you are staying on, because the bights cut Andros into three and you cannot drive between them. South Andros Airport serves the whole southern island.
Anything at Fresh Creek, Nicholls Town or on Mangrove Cay is a different strip and a different page. Send the name of the lodge with your dates and we pick the field.
Can you take a day trip to South Andros?
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 early, back in the evening, with both borders handled either side.
The desk at South Andros Airport keeps daytime hours, which is the only reason a morning departure is worth more than an afternoon one on this particular route.
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.
Say what is coming at the enquiry, including rods, coolers and anything with a battery in it, and the answer comes back with the quote rather than at the ramp.
Can we bring fishing gear and a cooler?
Yes, and on this route most parties do. South Andros is bonefishing country and the flats along the eastern shore are the reason a lot of these flights happen at all. Rod tubes, wading gear and a cooler travel on wheels within the payload for the aircraft on the day. Tell us what is coming when you send your dates.
What is there to do on South Andros?
That is the island's own question rather than the flight's and the destination page covers it properly. In short: the flats and the bonefish, more blue holes than anywhere else in the world, the barrier reef along the eastern shore with the Tongue of the Ocean behind it, the boatyard at Kemps Bay and a great many empty beaches.
Can we fly on from South Andros to another island?
Yes. Once you are through the desk at South Andros Airport every leg after it is domestic, so the same airframe carries on north up Andros or east across the bank to Nassau and the Exumas.
That makes South Andros a natural first stop on a longer trip rather than only a destination. Tell us the shape of the trip and it is quoted as one movement.
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. 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 a small plane to South Andros cheaper than flying commercial?
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 South Andros it usually means a connection through Nassau and most of a day.
Charter buys the block: your departure, your return, your party only, your load. That is the comparison worth making rather than fare against fare.
Can we land on the water instead?
Yes, on the same route with a different aircraft. A seaplane puts you down off the shore rather than on the strip, which suits a party whose week starts at a dock or a beach. It is the better answer in flat water and the worse one in a winter blow. We quote the two 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 South Andros Bahamas?
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.
- 24/7 support
- Fast response
- No obligation
Explore
