AIRLINE FREQUENCY AND CAPACITY STATISTICS

WHICH IS THE Biggest AIRLINE IN THE WORLD THIS MONTH?

• American Airlines remain the largest airline in the world in terms of frequencies, with 196,300 frequencies for this month, which is 39,500 more than Delta Air Lines, the second largest airline in the world by this metric.
• United Airlines, ranked 3rd largest, is showing the strongest growth in terms of extra flying, 11,900 more frequencies than last year, followed by Delta Air Lines which is up 9,500 frequencies. IndiGo continues to be the airline showing the fastest rate of growth, up 10.7% compared to last year while JetBlue is showing the largest rate of decline, down 6.4% in terms of frequencies compared to last year.

WHERE IS MOST DOMESTIC CAPACITY THIS MONTH?

• The USA remains the largest domestic market with 91.8m seats in the market this month, which is over 20.6m seats larger than the second largest domestic market China with 71.1m seats.
• Brazil is the fastest growing domestic market in the Top 10, showing a growth rate of 9.7% on last year, followed closely by India which is up 9.5%.
• Indonesia continues to be the market in the Top 10 showing the largest rate of decline, down 6.8% versus last year, a trend continuing on from the last two months. The other domestic markets in decline this month are Australia (-0.4%), Spain (-1.0%), and Japan (-1.7%).

WHICH TWO COUNTRIES VISIT EACH OTHER MOST?

• Spain - UK is the largest international country pair with 5.5m seats in the market this month, which is over 1.4m seats larger than the second largest international market Mexico - USA with 4.05m seats.
• China - Japan remains the market in the Top 20 with the largest growth rate, up 43.1% on last year, followed by China - Republic of Korea (+24.2%) and Chinese Taipei - Japan (15.1%).
• Russian Federation - Türkiye is the market in the Top 20 showing the largest rate of decline, down 5.0% on last year.

WHICH WORLD REGION HAS MOST FLIGHT CAPACITY?

• Global capacity in May 2025 will reach 522.3m seats, an increase of 4% on May 2024, which equates to an extra 19.1m seats.
• The largest region is North America with 115.2m seats, closely followed by Western Europe with 114.6m seats.
• The region with the largest growth in seat capacity this month is North East Asia where there are 4.3m more seats compared to last year, increasing the total for this month to 112.7m.
• The regions with the largest growth rates are Central Asia and Lower South America, where capacity is up 14% and 10% respectively.
• Central/Western Africa is the only region showing a decline in capacity versus last year, which is down 7%.

All data is sourced from OAG Schedules and is for the current month and previous months stated per chart. Data is unadjusted for the leap year effect. 

The categories are defined below:

1. The scheduled flight counter shows the number of flights in the schedule from the first day of the year up until the end of the current week.
2. Weekly airline capacity shows total global (international + domestic) capacity, international capacity and domestic capacity, measure in seats. It is plotted weekly with a forward view of filed scheduled capacity for the 11 weeks ahead, showing the overall 3 months forward-looking position.
3. Top 20 Airlines are the 20 largest global airlines by flights based on the current month.
4. Top 20 Country Pairs are those international country pairs with most seat capacity based on the current month.
5. Domestic Markets are the 10 largest markets by seats.
6. Seats by Region is seat capacity for the current month to, from and within each global sub region.