I just read in a different tread that the route CGK-DPS in indonesia is served with between 60-100 flights per day. the post said that it is mostly 737s, but still, it is a massive lift! SO that got me to wonder which is the busiest city pair served in the world, but by number of flights and capacity. I think in Europe it is London-Paris, intercontinentally NYC-LON is a huge market, but i guess there are busiest routes! any info??

I believe the busiest is HKG-TPE followed by Dublin-London.

Sao Paulo-Rio de Janeiro, Melbourne-Sydney, Seoul-Jeju and Jo'burg-Cape Town should also be massive

This article isn't perfect (mainly because statistical data tends to be published with delays) but it provides an excellent overiew:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s ... air_routes

Today (a Tuesday, which is usually a few less flights) there is:
48 one-way flights JNB-CPT...majority A320 and 737-800/400...most of the 738 and 734 will be in LCC configuration of around 185 and 165 respectively. Also a few A330/A340 from SAA (usually at least 3 flights).
10 one-way flights HLA-CPT...all 737-800 in LCC configuration.
That is 58 one-way, 116 flights on the city-pair (JoBurg-CPT)
Thurs,Fri and Sundays will probably have about 10 or so more one-way flights

PS: Can probably also include PRY-CPT, which have 2 daily Airlink AR8 flights...PRY roughly 30mi from JNB and HLA.

AZa346 wrote:

I think in Europe it is London-Paris

Not for many years, it is amazing how 16 750-seat trains a day running at up to 180mph and city centre to city centre erodes the air traffic. By the time people have got to and from the airports at each end, plus the time taken to go through security etc, there is no time advantage to flying and the airlines are left with people who actually start or finish their complete journey near an airport, or are catching connecting flights.

At one point, routes like MAD-BCN, CHI-NYC, and LAX-SFO were all in the top five, but it's clear that the rise of high-speed trains in Europe and a poor economy at times has taken its toll.

London-DUB has to be right up there seeing as you can fly to DUB from any airport in the London system (LHR, LGW, STN, LTN, LCY). It is a route that is right up there in terms of pax numbers for many airports, particularly STN.

Kilopond wrote:

This article isn't perfect (mainly because statistical data tends to be published with delays) but it provides an excellent overiew:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s ... air_routes

According to this wiki piece, there are a whopping 284 flights a day between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro!


I remember standing at CGH once and was stunned by the number of flights leaving every 10 or 15 minutes.

wow, some of the figures on the wikipedia page are just... shocking! thanks for replies!

Maybe not in frequencies but HND-OKA must be up there in terms of people moved. For today (28/JUN) I counted 31 flights in one direction (13 JL, 12 NH and 6 BC) Most of these being 777-200/300 equipment no doubt in a high density configuration. JL and NH both seem to only have a single narrowbody each on the route.

edit: HND-CTS Is busier still 50+ flights in a single direction (28/JUN) again mostly 777.

DXB - DOH
JED - RUH
DXB - LHR

(Not in order)

if you count turkey and russia as europe than i think izmir-istanbul, istanbul-antlanya and moscow-st. petersburg might be the busiest in europe
in america i think that LA-SF and LA-LAS VEGAS are the busiest

dubaiamman243 wrote:

DXB - DOH
JED - RUH
DXB - LHR

(Not in order)

If wiki is to be believed, none of these 3 even fall under Top 10 by pax volume.

If you count SJC, OAK, SFO in the Bay Area and LAX, SNA, LGB, BUR in the LA Basin, there are over 140 daily mainline flights between LA and SF. The same kind of scenario applies to routes between MDW, ORD, MKE and LGA, EWR, JFK.

If you mean strictly between two airports, I believe Seoul-Jeju.

CHI( ORD/MDW)- NYC(JFK/EWR/LGA) has 92 Flights scheduled for today Tuesday. Including an AA 777.

For Chicago-New York, I would throw in HPN on the New York end. That adds a couple of CRJ700s and three Embrear 135s.

DEL-BOM has 65 daily flights across 6 airlines. Almost all of them are mainline IIRC.

Not sure how many actual flights, but LAS-LAX or LAX-LAS is one of the busiest and biggest routes out of LAS.

aviationjunky wrote:

Not sure how many actual flights, but LAS-LAX or LAX-LAS is one of the busiest and biggest routes out of LAS.

not one of the busiest, its the busiest.

This is airport pairs because I don't want to create metro codes for every city in the world. If anyone has a list they have already made feel free to send it over.

Market & Seats / Day for year-ending June 2016.
CJU-GMP 18,622
CTS-HND 15,214
MEL-SYD 13,852
FUK-HND 13,002
BOM-DEL 10,779
HKG-TPE 10,702
PEK-SHA 10,398
HAN-SGN 9,677
CGK-SUB 9,665
CGH-SDU 8,832
JED-RUH 8,603
CPT-JNB 7,978
BNE-SYD 7,970
CGK-SIN 7,845
HND-ITM 7,594
CTU-PEK 7,541
KUL-SIN 7,341
CGK-DPS 7,303
CGK-UPG 7,242
HND-OKA 7,173
LAX-SFO 7,001
CAN-PEK 6,987
CAN-SHA 6,872
DOH-DXB 6,782
BKK-HKG 6,705

Rdh3e wrote:

CGK-UPG 7,242

This one comes at a surprise to me considering the metro is only the 11th largest within Indonesia.

Alright I found a list of metros so I went down the rabbit hole. I used this list from Wikipedia which is probably not comprehensive, the only thing I changed was to include LGB in the Los Angeles metro.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Metropolitan_A ... port_Codes

Codes that made the top 30:
BKK Bangkok
CHI Chicago
JKT Jakarta
LON London
NYC New York
OSA Osaka
QLA Los Angeles
QMI Miami
QSF San Francisco
RIO Rio de Janiero
SAO Sao Paulo
SEL Seoul
SHA Shanghai
SPK Sapporo
TYO Tokyo


1 QLA-QSF 21,391
2 CJU-SEL 18,791
3 SPK-TYO 17,614
4 RIO-SAO 17,511
5 NYC-QMI 15,977
6 FUK-TYO 14,778
7 MEL-SYD 13,852
8 BJS-SHA 12,365
9 JKT-SUB 11,210
10 BOM-DEL 10,779
11 HKG-TPE 10,702
12 CHI-NYC 10,248
13 OSA-TYO 10,201
14 BKK-HKT 9,842
15 HAN-SGN 9,677
16 BKK-CNX 9,099
17 JED-RUH 8,603
18 ATL-QMI 8,556
19 NYC-QLA 8,473
20 SHA-SZX 8,333
21 OKA-TYO 8,264
22 PHX-QLA 8,092
23 CAN-SHA 8,073
24 LAS-QLA 8,063
25 CPT-JNB 7,978
26 BNE-SYD 7,970
27 JKT-UPG 7,906
28 JKT-SIN 7,845
29 BJS-CTU 7,780
30 LON-NYC 7,708

a380787 wrote:

Rdh3e wrote:

CGK-UPG 7,242

This one comes at a surprise to me considering the metro is only the 11th largest within Indonesia.

Very busy route, UPG is a strategic transit point to most east Indonesian destinations.
Garuda is sending the 330 on the route, the 747 was also a regular

Checking ITA Matrix for July 11, I found abut 95 SAO-RIO flights and 101 RIO-SAO flights. But that is a Monday, when there is more traffic.

a380787 wrote:

dubaiamman243 wrote:

DXB - DOH
JED - RUH
DXB - LHR

(Not in order)

If wiki is to be believed, none of these 3 even fall under Top 10 by pax volume.

I, like many, don't consider Wiki to be a reliable source. Any "fact based" website that allows anyone who wants to edit it, cannot be taken too seriously.

CPT-JNB 7,978

See it depends where the figures are found? These numbers are the same as the airport-pair numbers, so only OR Tambo (JNB) airport. Lanseria (HLA) is not included in the city-pair figures...and it's actually the airport closest to Johannesburg metro itself.

MaxxFlyer wrote:

I, like many, don't consider Wiki to be a reliable source. Any "fact based" website that allows anyone who wants to edit it, cannot be taken too seriously.

They're not flawless, but they're usually more right than wrong. Take the list above that RDH3E posted and compare it to the ones on Wiki, and they're nearly dead-on with minor caveats here and there.

This is just a casual chat forum, not some PhD peer-review panel where your entire reputation is at stake

Come across this in capa website.

Top 10 routes in the world ranked by weekly seat capacity with year over year change

1 Jeju International Airport - Seoul Gimpo International Airport 251,666
2 Tokyo Haneda Airport - Sapporo Chitose Airport 232,700
3 Tokyo Haneda Airport - Fukuoka Airport 221,619
4 Hong Kong International Airport - Taipei Taoyuan International Airport 163,485
5 Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport - Melbourne Tullamarine Airport 162,070
6 Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport - Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport 159,525
7 Ho Chi Minh City Tan Son Nhat Airport - Hanoi Noi Bai Airport 158,658
8 Beijing Capital International Airport - Shanghai Hongqiao Airport 140,888
9 Tokyo Haneda Airport - Okinawa Naha Airport 130,552
10 Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont Airport - Sao Paulo Congonhas Airport 117,234

Note: based on seat capacity for last week of Dec-2015

GRJGeorge wrote:

so only OR Tambo (JNB) airport. Lanseria (HLA) is not included in the city-pair figures...and it's actually the airport closest to Johannesburg metro itself

As I said before I only used the metros from the one article because I don't have a comprehensive list myself.

You can update that Wikipedia article so that problem does not arise in the future.

potter787 wrote:

Note: based on seat capacity for last week of Dec-2015

I'm amazed that professional journalists would choose to base their data on a single week, nonetheless a week that contains two major holidays. I'm biased obviously, but excluding the issue of not having all the metros, I think the list I posted more accurately reflects everyday reality.

CAI-JED is a pretty busy route. The largest operators, MS and SV, operate mostly wide-body airplanes (sometimes 744s in SV's case). A number of low-cost operators from both countries also fly the route. A Google search indicates an average of 18 flights per day.

Rdh3e wrote:

This is airport pairs because I don't want to create metro codes for every city in the world. If anyone has a list they have already made feel free to send it over.

Market & Seats / Day for year-ending June 2016.
CJU-GMP 18,622
CTS-HND 15,214
MEL-SYD 13,852
FUK-HND 13,002
BOM-DEL 10,779
HKG-TPE 10,702
PEK-SHA 10,398
HAN-SGN 9,677
CGK-SUB 9,665
CGH-SDU 8,832
JED-RUH 8,603
CPT-JNB 7,978
BNE-SYD 7,970
CGK-SIN 7,845
HND-ITM 7,594
CTU-PEK 7,541
KUL-SIN 7,341
CGK-DPS 7,303
CGK-UPG 7,242
HND-OKA 7,173
LAX-SFO 7,001
CAN-PEK 6,987
CAN-SHA 6,872
DOH-DXB 6,782
BKK-HKG 6,705

I'm pretty sure CJU (Jeju)-GMP (Seoul Gimpo) is still the world's busiest airport pair based on passenger traffic. Did a quick check of today's (Thursday) schedules and there are 108 flights including 13 widebodies and nothing smaller than a 737-700. The 13 widebodies include 8 KE 747-400s.

CJU-GMP June 30 by aircraft type:

737-700 - 8
737-800 - 47
737-900 - 14
A320 - 8
A321 - 18
763 - 4
772 - 1
744 - 8
Total: 108

Viscount724 wrote:

Rdh3e wrote:

This is airport pairs
CJU-GMP 18,622
CTS-HND 15,214
MEL-SYD 13,852
FUK-HND 13,002

I'm pretty sure CJU (Jeju)-GMP (Seoul Gimpo) is still the world's busiest airport pair based on passenger traffic.

Well it's certainly the largest on seats as I posted. And with the margin it has it would have to have a 20% load factor deficit to Sapporo-Tokyo in order to get passed up, so I'd say it's a virtual certainty that Jeju-Seoul is the busiest by traffic.

If you're talking about aircraft movements, CGH-SDU is the busiest route for years!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_b ... utes#World

Rdh3e wrote:

Viscount724 wrote:

Rdh3e wrote:

This is airport pairs
CJU-GMP 18,622
CTS-HND 15,214
MEL-SYD 13,852
FUK-HND 13,002

I'm pretty sure CJU (Jeju)-GMP (Seoul Gimpo) is still the world's busiest airport pair based on passenger traffic.

Well it's certainly the largest on seats as I posted. And with the margin it has it would have to have a 20% load factor deficit to Sapporo-Tokyo in order to get passed up, so I'd say it's a virtual certainty that Jeju-Seoul is the busiest by traffic.

Historically both ANA and JAL has managed high-60s load factor on their domestic trunk network. I guess when you have a duopoly and deliciously high yields that's how they get by.

This topic gets covered regularly but I think this is all the different variation on the theme:

Most aircraft movements domestic ops : CGH-SDU
Most aircraft movements int'l ops: HKG-TPE

Most seats domestic ops: CJU-GMP
Most seats int'l ops: HKG-TPE (by a huge margin vs. the next one on the list)

Suprisingly none of the top 10 busiest routes are in europe or the us.

Harshil9 wrote:

Suprisingly none of the top 10 busiest routes are in europe or the us.

In the US (and in many European cities) the major metros generally have more than one airport. If you look at the "Metro Code" version of the list you'll see 2 US markets, including #1 overall.