The Busiest Air Routes—In The World And Stateside [Infographic]

The busiest air routes in the world are all domestic flights. Still, the frequent flyer nation of the United States can’t hold the candle to the high demand for air travel in Asia. There, the busiest route has the capacity to transport more than three times as many people in a month than the busiest U.S. route.

Data published for the month of April by air travel analytics firm OAG also gives some insights into which types of routes frequently pop up as the most used around the world. Most often, these connections are tied to tourism or entertainment destinations, while island locations also have a leg up.

The busiest flight route in the world is the connection between Gimpo airport in the South Korean capital of Seoul and Jeju island, a popular travel destination for domestic Korean tourists. Korea’s neighbor Japan also has huge seat capacities on domestic flights, between the capital of Tokyo and Sapporo on the Northern island of Hokkaido—a year-round tourist destination—as well as Fukuoka on the Southern Kyushu island. The global top 6 is rounded off by flights between Vietnam’s, Australia’s and China’s biggest cities.

In the U.S., domestic thrill seekers are also the ones who are driving up demand for flights. Most want to travel from Los Angeles International Airport to Las Vegas, creating a seat capacity of more than 311,000 this April. A U.S. island—Hawaii—is making an appearance next, as another 300,000 people are expected to make the roughly 100-mile journey between Honolulu and Kahului on the nearby island of Maui this month.

Life’s a beach (for airline route planners)

Some island routes have also popularized short flights as ground transportation is either not an option or is the more complicated, time-consuming and expensive choice. While the inter-Hawaiian route is the briefest in the ranking, the world’s busiest leg between Seoul and Jeju island is the third-shortest.

The flight route linking the United States’ biggest cities across a distance of almost 2,500 miles is an outlier in that sense. As the most popular air routes over land are typically 400-700 miles long, the inclusion of the JFK-LAX route does highlight the extraordinary reliance the U.S. places on air travel to keep the country connected.

International connections

International flights are a more pricy and sometimes more complicated way to travel and therefore attract fewer passengers. The most busy route this April is connecting Egyptian capital Cairo with Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, the gateway to Muslim pilgrimage place Mecca. While not technically a tourist destination, the Hajj to Mecca is still a journey most people only undertake once in a lifetime. This month, almost 450,000 people will be flying on the route—still more than on the busiest U.S. journey.

The pilgrimage to Mecca is seasonal and is expected to peak in summer. Between August 2022 and March 2023, the connection between Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, and Singapore Changi airport was the most busy international route with up to 400,000 passengers per month.

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Charted by Statista