INTERNATIONAL. The Asia Pacific region dominated the world’s busiest passenger air routes in 2017, a new study by aviation event organiser Routes has found.
Despite the US remaining the world’s largest aviation market, the analysis showed that air services in Asia Pacific have an impressive hold over the top 100 busiest routes by passenger numbers, accounting for more than 70% of the total.
The study ranks the 450km route from Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport to the island of Jeju off the coast of the Korean Peninsula as number one in the list of busiest air routes. More than 13.4 million people travelled on the short-haul domestic service, which has an average of 180 scheduled flights per day.
A total of 13,460,305 passengers flew between Seoul and Jeju last year, an increase of +9.4% on the previous 12 months when the route was also ranked as the world’s busiest. It carried over 4 million more people than the second most popular, Melbourne – Sydney Kingsford Smith.
The top ten international route list is dominated by Hong Kong International Airport, home hub of Cathay Pacific, with six routes. These include Hong Kong International – Taiwan Taoyuan, the busiest international route and the eighth most popular overall. A total of 6,719,029 passengers flew the 802km journey in 2017.
The fastest-growing route in the top 100, according to the study, was the Thai domestic route of Bangkok Suvarnabhumi – Chiang Mai International. Passenger numbers grew by +36% year-on-year to almost 2.4 million. Other big risers included Seoul Incheon international – Kansai International (+30.3%) and Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International – Kuala Lumpur International (+29.4%).
The busiest routes study has been released as 3,000 aviation professionals prepare to gather at the conference World Routes 2018, taking place from 15-18 September in Guangzhou, China.
Routes Brand Director Steven Small said: “This research backs up forecasts that the Asia Pacific region will be the biggest driver of passenger demand over the next 20 years. Such staggering aviation growth means it is the perfect time for World Routes to return to China.
“The event will bring together senior decision makers from across the world to plan new air services and discuss increasing the frequency and capacity of the existing routes that are popular with passengers. The negotiations taking place in Guangzhou could pave the way to the busiest routes of the future.”
Note: The busiest routes in the world were calculated by using OAG Schedules Analyser to find the top 500 routes by overall seat capacity in 2017. The routes were then ranked by passenger numbers using data provided by Sabre Market Intelligence.
