The busiest passenger air routes on earth have beenrevealed in a new study published by Routes, organiser of the world's leadingaviation network development conferences and events.
With more than 13.4 million people travelling on theshort-haul domestic service, the 450 km journey from Seoul's Gimpo Airport tothe island of Jeju off the coast of the Korean Peninsula has once again claimedthe title as the most in-demand air route in the world.
The route has an average of 180 scheduled flights per day- that's one every 8 minutes - transporting mainly leisure travellers fromSouth Korea's dense capital city to the island, famed for its white sandy beachresorts and volcanic landscape.
A total of 13,460,305 passengers flew between Seoul andJeju in 2017, an increase of 9.4% on the previous 12 months when the route wasalso ranked as the busiest in the world. It carried a staggering 4,369,364 morepeople than the second busiest, Melbourne - Sydney Kingsford Smith.
Although the United States remains the world's largestaviation market, the analysis by Routes found that air services in theAsia-Pacific region dominate the top 100 busiest routes by passenger numbers,accounting for more than 70% of the total.
Hong Kong - Taiwan Taoyuan is the busiest internationalroute and features as the 8th most popular overall, with 6,719,029 passengersflying the 802 km in 2017. Hong Kong, the home hub for Cathay Pacific, featuresin six of the top ten international routes.
The study also found that the Thai domestic route ofBangkok Suvarnabhumi - Chiang Mai is the fastest-growing route in the top 100.
Two-way passengernumbers grew by 36% year-on-year to almost 2.4 million.
The research has been released as 3,000 aviationprofessionals prepare to gather at World Routes 2018, taking place from 15-18September in Guangzhou, China. The event is a global meeting place forairlines, airports and tourism organisations to discuss new marketopportunities and the evolution of existing services.
Steven Small, brand director of Routes, said: "Thisresearch backs up forecasts that the Asia-Pacific region will be the biggestdriver of passenger demand over the next 20 years. Such staggering aviationgrowth means it is the perfect time for World Routes to return to China.
"The event will bring together senior decision makersfrom across the world to plan new air services and discuss increasing thefrequency and capacity of the existing routes that are popular with passengers.The negotiations in taking place in Guangzhou could pave the way to the busiestroutes of the future."
The busiest routes in the world were calculated by usingOAG Schedules Analyser to find the top 500 routes by overall seat capacity in2017.
The routes were then ranked by passenger numbers usingdata provided by Sabre Market Intelligence.
More informationabout Routes can be found at routesonline.com [1]
