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I don't mind layovers between connecting flights much. If they're long enough I can have a little visit of the connecting city. Short of that, I find spending time in an airport more comfortable than time spent on the plane. And I can do work if I'm stuck in an airport. I also like to try to fly the shortest route for environmental reasons, instead of adding extra legs.

So I'm less concerned about total travel time and more interested in how much time will be spent in the plane. Is there a flight search that will allow me to filter or sort results based on the total scheduled flight time instead of the scheduled flight time plus layovers?

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    Most seach engines seem to cater to the general travelling public's wish to know total travel time (which included layovers/transit), though all I've seen do provide some form of breakdown but not as a top level seach filter.... – Roddy of the Frozen Peas Jan 21 at 7:13
  • ITA Matrix highlights "long layover" flights. – Michael Hampton Jan 21 at 17:08
  • Possible duplicate of travel.stackexchange.com/questions/71060/… – JonathanReez♦ Feb 6 at 0:12
  • There are excellent reasons to want to minimize airborne time, but I'm not sure the environment is one. Given that (a) take-offs use disproportionately much fuel compared to cruise, and (b) larger planes are more fuel-efficient per seat than smaller ones -- I would expect that the most fuel-efficient way to get everybody to their destination is a hub-and-spoke network. So an environmentally conscious traveler might (once he has decided to fly at all) prefer to fly direct if there's a direct route served by a widebody, and otherwise the one-layover routing with the largest planes flying. – Henning Makholm Apr 6 at 20:08
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The best way that I can think of to find flights with less time in the air is to perform your search with Kayak and then drag the Flight Leg Duration slider down. It's based on what the available flights are so if you only give yourself a small range above the minimum then you can get a group of very short flights.

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There will definitely be some work left for you to do and they won't be sorted but I think it could help.

On a slightly related note, I like to use the site AirWander to find flights with long layovers in cities so that I can go out and explore.

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