With a flight time of just over an hour and covering a distance of little more than 180 miles, the busiest international airline route in the world in 2023 was between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore Changi, according to the boffins at airline data platform OAG.
There are as many as 34 daily flights between the two Southeast Asian cities and OAG estimates that that equates to around 4.9 million available seats in 2023.
Just behind was Cairo in Egypt to the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah with 4.8 million available seats in 2023, and in third place was Hong Kong to Taipei with 4.6 million available seats.
Rounding out the top five busiest international airline routes of 2023 were Seoul Incheon to Osaka Kansai in fourth and Seul Incheon to Tokyo Narita in fifth place.
The only North American or European route to feature in the top ten busiest routes was New York JFK to London Heathrow which came in at eighth place with 3.9 million available seats.
London Heathrow also made the list of one of the busiest international airports in the world, ranking in second place behind Dubai International Airport. Third place was taken by Amsterdam Schiphol, while Paris Charles de Gaulle came in at fourth and Singapore Changi took fifth place.
There are, however, different methods to rank airports and if you take domestic flights into consideration alongside international flights, then Atlanta Hartsfield International becomes the clear winner yet again, with more than 61 million available seats.
Atlanta was also the busiest airport in the world in 2022 and 2019, while Dubai International retained the number two spot for the second year in a row. Haneda Airport in Tokyo moves up one spot to the third busiest airport in the world, London Heathrow comes in fourth and Dallas Fort Worth falls from third place in 2022 to the fifth busiest airport in 2023.
Commenting on the results, OAG’s chief analyst John Grant said: “Asia continues to have the busiest routes in the world due to its popularity as a tourism hotspot.”
“Although capacity is not back to 2019 levels, London Heathrow remains a pivotal hub for global air travel,” Grant continued.
