Route Ladder: The Daily Puzzle Where You Connect Two Airports by Nonstop Flights

A word ladder, but with flights

Route Ladder gives you two airports, say Boise and Bali, and asks you to get from one to the other using only real nonstop flights. You build the route one airport at a time, and every flight is a stroke. Par is one more than the fewest flights it can be done in, and the game scores you like a round of golf: find a shortest route and you've made a birdie.

There's a new daily ladder at midnight, the same one for everyone, so you can keep a streak going and compare scores with friends. Practice deals another ladder whenever you want one. It's free, there's nothing to sign up for, and most rounds take a couple of minutes.

How to play

1. Look at the board. The departure board shows where you start, where you're going and the par. The map shows both airports with a dotted line between them, as the crow flies.
2. Pick your next airport. Type a city, an airport name or a three-letter code and choose from the list. If there's a nonstop from where you are, you fly there, and the flight is drawn on the map.
3. No nonstop is a strike. Pick an airport you can't fly to nonstop from where you are and you get a strike, with a message like "No nonstop from Boise (BOI) to Denpasar-Bali (DPS)". Three strikes and the round is over.
4. Undo is free. Took a wrong turn? Undo your last flight and you get its stroke back. Strikes and hints stay counted.
5. Stuck? Take a hint. A hint flies you to the next airport on a shortest route from wherever you are, for one extra stroke.
6. Land at the target to finish. You get par + 3 strokes in all.

The search box never gives the answer away: it lists the same airports in the same order wherever you are. The only airports it greys out are the one you're at and ones you've already struck out on from there.

On a keyboard, press / to jump to the search box, arrow keys and Enter to pick an airport, and U to undo.

Scoring

Every flight is one stroke and every hint adds one more. Your result compares your strokes with par:

Par is one more than the fewest flights possible, so a Birdie is the best result there is: it means you found a shortest route without help. A hint always costs you a stroke, so a round with a hint can be a Par at best.

Your stats count each result, Birdie through Triple bogey plus "didn't finish", along with your win rate and streak, separately for Daily and Practice. A daily streak keeps going as long as you finish within par + 3 every day.

When you share a result, it shows the two airports and your score, with a plane for each flight, a light bulb for each hint and a cross for each strike. It never lists the airports you flew through, so it won't spoil the ladder for anyone else:

Route Ladder (practice) BOI → DPS
✈️✈️✈️✈️❌
Par · par 4

What's in the game

The game knows 739 airports in 162 countries and 18,846 nonstop routes between them: the airports with the most nonstop routes in our route data, plus every well-known airport from Guess the Airport. A route counts when the data lists scheduled nonstop service in both directions, on any airline.

The routes are a snapshot of scheduled nonstop flights from April 2026. Airlines add, drop and pause routes all the time, so a route that started since may be missing and one that ended may still be listed. Seasonal routes are in only if they were in the schedule when the snapshot was taken.

The best-connected airports in the game:

There are 366 daily ladders between 265 well-known airports in 102 countries: 150 par 3s (two flights at best), 180 par 4s (three) and 36 par 5s (four), and 355 of them link two continents. They come up in a fixed shuffled order, so none repeats for a year. Most have many ways to make a birdie (the typical ladder has 35 different shortest routes), but 17 have exactly one.

How far apart are airports, in flights? Across every pair of airports in the game, 6.9% have a nonstop, 45.6% take two flights, 45.7% take three and 1.8% take four. Only 7 pairs need five, such as Tarawa in Kiribati (whose only route in the game is to Nadi, Fiji) to Tehran Mehrabad (THR).

Strategy

• Work backwards from the target. Small airports usually have a handful of routes, often to one or two hubs. Find the hub that serves your target, then work out how to get to that hub.
• A par 3 needs one shared neighbor. A birdie on a par 3 is two flights, so you need a single airport with nonstops to both ends, usually a big hub in between, like Istanbul between Europe and Africa or Seoul between North America and Southeast Asia.
• A par 4 is often hub to hub. Fly from the start to its nearest big hub, cross to a hub near the target, then hop in. Most par 4 birdies are regional airport, hub, hub, regional airport.
• Know the bridges between regions. Istanbul, Addis Ababa, Casablanca and Johannesburg connect Africa to the rest of the world; Madrid and Lisbon reach deep into Latin America; Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing link Asia with North America; Santiago to Melbourne is the shortcut between South America and Australia.
• The dotted line is only a guide. The map is flat, so the shortest way often curves north over the pole, and the best stop may not be between the two airports on the map at all.
• Use undo freely. If a stop takes you somewhere with no onward route, undo costs nothing. Only strikes and hints stick.

When the round ends, the scorecard shows your route against a shortest one (the one with the fewest miles) on the map, and links to the Routes tool and the Award Flight Pricer so you can see who flies those routes and what they cost in points.

Frequently asked questions

How is par set?

Par is one more than the fewest nonstop flights it takes to get between the two airports, worked out from every route in the game. Every daily ladder is a par 3, 4 or 5, so finding a shortest route with no hints scores a Birdie.

How does scoring work?

Every flight is a stroke and every hint adds one more. One under par is a Birdie (the best possible), matching par is a Par, one over is a Bogey, two over a Double bogey and three over a Triple bogey. You get par + 3 strokes in all: if you haven't landed by then, or you pick three airports with no nonstop from where you are, the round ends.

What counts as a nonstop?

A route counts when our route data lists scheduled nonstop service in both directions, on any airline. Connections and one-stop flights don't count. The routes are a snapshot from April 2026, so a route that has started or stopped since then may be missing or still listed.

Does undo cost anything?

No. Undo takes back your last flight and gives you its stroke back. Hints and strikes stay counted.

What does a hint do?

It flies you to the next airport on a shortest route from wherever you are, and costs one extra stroke on top of the flight. You need at least two strokes left to use one.

Does the search box give away which flights exist?

No. It lists the same airports in the same order wherever you are. The only ones it greys out are the airport you're at and airports you've already tried from there with no nonstop.

How many ladders are there?

366 daily ladders between 265 well-known airports in 102 countries: 150 par 3s, 180 par 4s and 36 par 5s. They come up in a fixed shuffled order, so none repeats for a year. The game knows 739 airports in 162 countries and 18,846 nonstop routes between them.

How do I share my score?

When the round ends, click Share. It copies the two airport codes, a plane for each flight, a light bulb for each hint, a cross for each strike and your result, without the airports you flew through.

Is Route Ladder free?

Yes. It's free with no account. Your stats and streak are saved in your browser.

Why routes matter for points travelers

Award seats are booked one flight at a time, and the best redemptions often come from knowing which hub connects two places. A partner award through Istanbul, Doha or Seoul can beat the obvious route, and a nonstop you didn't know existed can save a whole connection. Route Ladder is practice for exactly that kind of thinking. When you find a route you'd like to fly, check the Routes tool for the airlines on each leg and the Award Flight Pricer for what it costs in miles.