KUALA LUMPUR, 23 Dec 2023:
Air travel between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore has been declared the busiest international airline route for 2023.
This finding by OAG’s Global Airline Schedules Data, to provide an overview of route performance and trends, showed 4.9 million seats occupied in flights connecting the KL International Airport and Singapore’s Changi Airport.
The Cairo-Jeddah air route is in second place with 4.8 million seats, there is just 2% capacity difference between first and second place, OAG said in a statement.
The Hong Kong to Taipei link is the third busiest international route in 2023 with 4.6 million seats. This was the busiest route in 2019 and capacity has dropped by 43% since then. Seoul Incheon to Osaka Kansai is the fourth busiest international route in 2023 with 4.2 million seats.
“Once again Asia-Pacific has the busiest routes in the world, claiming seven of the Top 10 global international and 9 global domestic routes,” said John Grant, chief analyst at OAG. “Asia continues to have the busiest routes in the world due to its popularity as a tourism hotspot.”
However, domestic routes far outswamped international links with the busiest domestic airline route of 2023 being the Jeju-Seoul connection with 13.7 million seats. This was also the busiest domestic route in both 2019 and 2022, despite the route having a 21% less airline capacity this year
It still managed to chalk up a 15% gap in capacity to second placed Hokkaido’s Chitose Airport to Tokyo Haneda link with 11.9 million seats. Fukuoka to Tokyo Haneda is the third busiest route with 11.3 million seats – there is only a 6% gap in capacity between second and third place.
Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City is the fourth busiest domestic airline route in 2023 with 10.9 million seats and Melbourne (MEL) to Sydney is the fifth with 9.3 million seats. Jakarta to Denpasar is in 10th place and is the only route in the top 10 which did not appear in the top 10 in 2019.
This year’s Busiest Global Airport is Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport,which was also busiest in 2019 and 2022, had airline capacity increase by 12% year-on-year and is just 3% below 2019 levels.
Second was Dubai International Airport, with capacity increased by 5% compared to 2019 when it was the 4th busiest airport in the world. Tokyo International Airport is the third busiest airport in 2023 with 53 million seats and London Heathrow is fourth with 49 million seats.
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