What are the busiest routes in 2024? Spoiler: one is European
As 2024 draws to a close, it is time to take stock. Which routes were the most [...]

As 2024 draws to a close, it is time to take stock. What have been the busiest routes in the past 12 months? This question is answered by OAG, leading travel data platform which in its usual annual analysis examined not only the data for January-December '24 but also compared it with 2023 and 2019 (the last year before the pandemic). Here are the 10 busiest international routes in 2024. Spoiler: one is European.
In this article:
In first place we find the Hong Kong-Taipei, with 6,781,577 million places available in 2024. This route increased by almost 50% from the previous year (in which it placed third) but remains 15% lower than pre-pandemic. Silver medal for the Cairo-Jeddah route., which in 2024 recorded 5,469,274 million places: in this case, the growth was not only over 2023 (+14%) but also over 2019 (as much as +62%). Bottom step of the podium for the Seoul (ICN) - Tokyo (NRT): 5.4 million seats in 2024 (58,818 less than second place, or -1.1%). Capacity on this route increased by 30% compared to 2023 and by 68%, on the other hand, compared to 2019.
This is followed by, the Kuala Lumpur - Singapore Changi route (4th place), the Seoul Incheon - Osaka Kansai (5th), Dubai - Riyadh (6th), Bangkok - Hong Kong (7th), Jakarta - Singapore Changi (8th), Bangkok - Singapore Changi (9th). As mentioned, finally, in 10th place Of the ranking of the busiest international routes we find the New York (JFK)-London (LHR), the only European route on this list: 4,011,235 seats in 2024, +5% compared to 2019 and +3% compared to 2023.
In short, as you can see, dominating the ranking are routes to Asia (7 in total). The other regions present are. Africa e Middle East (with the Cairo-Jeddah and Dubai-Riyadh routes) and North America and Europe (New York JFK-London Heathrow).
OAG, then, as usual, compiled a ranking of the busiest routes for each region. As for Europe, the first three routes are the Barcelona-Palma de Mallorca (1st, with 2,869,842 seats), the Antalya-Istanbul (2nd position, 2,719,183 seats) and Madrid-Palma de Mallorca (3rd, 2,565,512 seats).