The Crossing
Small Plane Flights Miami to Tilloo Cay
Tilloo Cay is a long, narrow strip of land in the Abacos with no runway on it and no ferry to it, which sounds like a problem and is not. The runway you need is at Marsh Harbour, on the Great Abaco side of the water.
Leonard M. Thompson International carries the identifiers MHH and MYAM and 6,100 feet of asphalt, rebuilt in 2007 to take regional jets. A small charter aircraft lands there on wheels, the same as it would at home, and the cay is a few miles of sheltered water away.
The water between Florida and Great Abaco is about 178 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 open Atlantic and the colour changes under the wing long before the chain of cays 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 into the Abacos. Where a party would rather skip the boat altogether, the same trip is flown by seaplane instead, which is a different aircraft and a different page.
Plan Your Tilloo Cay Charter
How It Works
How a Small Plane Charter Miami to Tilloo Cay Actually Works
The Abacos are 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 Marsh Harbour, you clear in at the desk inside the terminal and you cross to the cay by boat. Which field a flight actually clears through depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date, and it comes back with the quote.
Plan Your Tilloo Cay CharterThe Runway
The runway at Marsh Harbour is the reason this route works on wheels
The strip runs 09/27 and measures 6,100 feet of asphalt, rebuilt in 2007 so that regional jets could use it. For a small charter aircraft that is an ordinary arrival with a straight approach over shallow water and a fraction of the asphalt used.
It is the only runway anywhere near the cay and it sits in Marsh Harbour, the town that runs the whole of the Abacos.
The Border
Customs and immigration sit at the Marsh Harbour airport, minutes from Tilloo Cay
The Bahamian customs authority lists Marsh Harbour as a port of entry with both a dock and an airport, which is the part that matters for a private flight. Abaco carries more than one, Treasure Cay and Green Turtle Cay among them, and which of them a flight uses depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date.
A small cay cannot clear anybody either way, so you clear where the wheels come down and cross afterwards as a domestic movement. 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 on this crossing
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
The final few miles to Tilloo Cay are covered by water, not by road
The cay lies a short way south of the runway, on the far side of the shallow lagoon that runs the length of the Abacos.
There is no bridge to Tilloo, no road on it and no scheduled service to it, so the last stretch is made the way the people who live there make it. It is measured in minutes and it is arranged with the flight rather than left to you on arrival.
Weather
Weather closes water before it closes the Marsh Harbour runway
A rough morning can make a water landing a bad idea while a paved strip is entirely unbothered, and the lagoon side of the chain stays workable in a chop that the open ocean side does not.
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 small plane waits, which is what makes a Tilloo Cay 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 cay tell us at the enquiry and the crew and the aircraft are planned around it. Nothing about the day is shared with anybody else's schedule.
Departure Points
Departure Points for Small Plane Flights to Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay
Chartering an aircraft is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Tilloo Cay 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 and the boat across to the cay.
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 Tilloo Cay Small Plane Puts You Down
The aircraft puts you on the runway at Marsh Harbour, on the Great Abaco side of the water, which is the island with the border desk on it and the only asphalt anywhere near the cay.
Everything below is reached from that apron, and the first step of most days is a short ride and a boat across the sound.
Plan Your Tilloo Cay CharterThe Marsh Harbour Runway and the Border Desk
Where You LandThe strip runs east to west across the edge of Great Abaco, 6,100 feet of asphalt rebuilt in 2007 so that regional jets could use it. For a small charter aircraft that is an ordinary arrival: a straight approach over shallow water, a fraction of the asphalt used and a general aviation apron away from the terminal traffic.
The terminal is one building. Customs and immigration are inside it, which is the fact that shapes this whole route: a cay with thirty-odd houses on it cannot clear anybody, so you clear where the wheels come down and cross afterwards as a domestic movement.
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.
Marsh Harbour on the Great Abaco Side
The Mainland
The town around the airport is the practical centre of the Abacos: the ferry docks, the chandlery, the supermarket and the fuel. It is where a stay on a cay with no shop on it gets provisioned, and it is worth half an hour on the way through rather than a trip back the next morning.
For a day trip it is mostly the place you pass between the apron and the water, which is not a drawback: the ride is short and there is no queue at either end. A car or a golf cart can be waiting when you land through ground transport, and the Marsh Harbour page covers the town properly.
The Boat Across the Sea of Abaco to Tilloo Cay
The Last Leg
The Sea of Abaco is a saltwater lagoon of about sixty two miles, held between Great Abaco and the chain of barrier cays, and generally only a few metres deep. The cays take the Atlantic swell on their ocean side, so the water you cross on the inside stays flat on days the open sea does not.
That is the whole argument for this leg. It is measured in minutes rather than in miles, there is no bridge and no scheduled ferry to Tilloo, and the people who live on the cay travel the same way.
It is the one step this aircraft has that a water landing does not, and it is what buys you a paved runway on a winter morning or with a load on board.
Guests who would rather not do it at all fly the same route by seaplane to the cay 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.
Tilloo Cut and the Sandbar at the North End
Where You Stop
The cay runs long and very slender, immediately south of Elbow Cay and separated from it by a narrow strait, Tilloo Cut. Tahiti Beach sits on the Elbow Cay side of that cut, reachable only on foot, by bike or by boat, and at low tide a sandbar comes up out of the water in front of it.
That corner is where most days on this cay begin, and it is the first thing you see from the air on the way in. What is on the cay itself is its own subject rather than the flight's and the Tilloo Cay page covers it.
The Tilloo Cay National Reserve at the South End
Eleven Acres
The southern tip of the cay is a national reserve of eleven acres, given to the Bahamas National Trust in 1990 on the condition that it be kept natural forever. There is no path network and nobody stationed there, and the seaward side lies open with no reef in front of it.
It is an important nesting site for the white-tailed tropicbird and is counted as an Important Bird Area, which is the reason the reserve exists at all. Further south again the Pelican Cays Land and Sea Park covers 2,100 acres of reef and underwater caves, established in 1972.
Hope Town and the Lighthouse Across the Cut
From the Air
Elbow Cay carries the lighthouse everybody photographs, red and white in bands, standing over Hope Town harbour since the 1860s. It burns kerosene and is still wound by hand, one of the last of its kind anywhere.
You see it from the air on the way in, a few minutes before the wheels come down, and from the north end of Tilloo it is a short boat ride rather than a flight. It belongs on this page as a sight rather than as a leg, and the Hope Town page and the Elbow Cay page cover what is there.
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.
Rods, a cooler for the boat, dive gear, a case of something for the house and a week of groceries bought on the way through: all of it travels, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
On a cay with no shop and no road that is not a detail, it is the difference between a stay that works and one that sends somebody back across the sound.
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 Through the Abacos by Small Plane
Same Aircraft
Tilloo works as one stop on a longer trip rather than the whole of it, and clearing in on arrival is what makes that easy: once you are through the desk, every leg after it is domestic. Which of the Abaco fields that is, Marsh Harbour or Treasure Cay, depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date.
Treasure Cay is a few minutes further north, identifiers TCB and MYAT, and is on the same Bahamian ports of entry list, which matters when a trip is built around the northern end not around the sound. The same airframe carries on to Nassau, Harbour Island or Grand Bahama. That is what turns one cay into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day.
Which field a flight clears through depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date, and it comes back with the quote rather than being fixed here. The packaged version of a single day is the Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay?
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 Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay: The Runway at Marsh Harbour and the Boat Across
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the strip on Great Abaco, the border desk that sits inside it, the water crossing and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Miami to Tilloo Cay by Small Plane: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Tilloo Cay 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 over the water. You watch the open Atlantic go 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. The last twenty minutes are the ones people remember. The chain of barrier cays arrives first as a thin green line, then as separate islands with white edges, and behind them the Sea of Abaco opens out: a lagoon that runs about sixty two miles down the inside of the chain and is generally only a few metres deep. 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 Tilloo Cay from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a small plane to Tilloo Cay
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 Tilloo Cay 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. The Abacos are 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 Tilloo Cay from Miami: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Tilloo Cay crossing
A small plane from Miami to Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Tilloo Cay
A private small plane from Miami to Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay: Questions Answered
Can a plane land on Tilloo Cay?
No, and no aircraft on wheels can. Tilloo Cay is a long, narrow cay with houses on it and no runway.
The nearest asphalt is Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco, 6,100 feet, identifiers MHH and MYAM, and that is where a small plane from Miami puts you down. The last leg is a short boat, because there is no bridge and no scheduled ferry to the cay.
Do I need a passport to fly to Tilloo Cay?
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 Tilloo Cay?
The water between Miami and Marsh Harbour is about 178 nautical miles wide, roughly 205 statute miles. 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.
What is the best way to get to Tilloo Cay?
By air to Great Abaco and then by water. A small plane lands on the runway at Marsh Harbour, which is dependable in weather the water is not, and a boat covers the last few miles. A seaplane skips the boat and puts you on the water at the cay itself. We quote the two against each other rather than selling one.
Where does the flight land for Tilloo Cay?
At Leonard M. Thompson International in Marsh Harbour, on Great Abaco. Customs and immigration are inside the terminal, so you clear on arrival rather than somewhere on the way. From the apron it is a short ride to the water and then a boat across the Sea of Abaco to the cay, which has no road on it and no ferry service of its own.
Can you take a day trip to Tilloo Cay?
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 arranged at both ends. Tell us at the enquiry if you would rather stay a night and the aircraft is 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. 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.
Is Tilloo Cay good for families?
It suits families who want quiet rather than facilities. The water on the lagoon side is shallow and warm, the sandbar at Tilloo Cut appears at low tide and there is no traffic anywhere on the cay. Children need passports like everybody else. Everything a household runs on is bought in Marsh Harbour before you cross, which is worth planning rather than discovering.
Can we fly on to another island from Tilloo Cay afterwards?
Yes. The same airframe carries on through the Abacos and beyond, and because you have already cleared into the Bahamas at Marsh Harbour the onward legs are domestic. Treasure Cay is a few minutes further north and is also on the ports of entry list. 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 flight?
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 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. Charter buys the block: your departure, your return, your party only, your load.
On a trip that ends with a boat ride, several more usable hours on the right side of the water is the comparison worth making rather than fare against fare.
What do we do once we are there?
That is the cay's own question rather than the flight's and the Tilloo Cay destination page covers it properly. In short: the cut and the sandbar at the north end, the national reserve at the south end, the flats on the lagoon side and the reefs beyond. 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 Tilloo Cay?
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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