AIRLINE FREQUENCY AND CAPACITY STATISTICS


AIR TRAVEL DATA FROM THE EXPERTS

Which is the biggest airline in the world? Which country pairs have most capacity this month? How many flights are there per day, worldwide? Our Airline Frequency and Capacity Statistics answer all these questions and more with key facts and figures about travel, using flight data from OAG's Schedules Analyser; a cutting-edge platform for airline schedule analysis. 

SCHEDULED FLIGHT COUNTER


FLIGHTS IN THE SCHEDULE 1st JAN - 24th MARCH 2024

Our flight frequency counter shows the number of (one-way) flights in the schedule from 1st January 2024 to the end of the current week.

With 7,965,369 flights in total to the end of this week, the average number of commercial flights per day is 94,825.

 

WEEKLY AIRLINE CAPACITY DATA


 

HOW MUCH AIRLINE CAPACITY IS SCHEDULED THIS WEEK?

This chart shows the most recent weekly global (domestic + international) , domestic and international airline capacity. The dotted line represents capacity in the airlines' future schedules for the next 11 weeks. 

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TOP TWENTY AIRLINES | MARCH 2024


 

WHICH IS THE Biggest AIRLINE IN THE WORLD THIS MONTH?

  • The three US legacy carriers of American Airlines (AA), Delta Air Lines (DL) and United Airlines (UA) are the three largest carriers in the world in terms of frequencies this month.
  • All three of these carriers are adding frequency year on year: AA (+6.0%), DL (+0.3%) and UA (+1.6%).
  • In terms of the top carriers with the highest percentage growth rates this month, the top two are Chinese carriers reflecting the strong recovery in the Chinese aviation market, Air China up 23.1% and China Eastern Airlines up 12.0%.
  • There are only two carriers in the Top 20 airlines by frequency which have seen a decrease in capacity in March 2024 compared to March 2023, JetBlue has seen the biggest decrease with a drop of 10.2% and All Nippon Airways has dropped by 1.3%.

 

TOP TWENTY COUNTRY PAIRS FOR TRAVEL | MARCH 2024


 

WHICH TWO COUNTRIES VISIT EACH OTHER MOST?

  • This month, Mexico - USA remains the largest international country pair with 4.8m seats, which is 17.7% higher than in March 2023.
  • The second largest country pair is Spain to United Kingdom with 3.4m seats, which is 8.6% higher than last year.
  • The top three country pairs in terms of highest percentage growth compared to the same month last year all start or end in China: Japan - China (+682.3%), Republic of Korea - China (+347.7%) and Thailand - China (+166.7%).  This strong growth in these markets highlights how the China outbound market continues to recover.  
  • All of the Top 20 markets this month are up compared to last March, the country pair with the smallest growth rate is Ireland - United Kingdom with 1.2%, 16,074 seats.  

 

DOMESTIC MARKETS | MARCH 2024


 

WHERE IS MOST DOMESTIC CAPACITY THIS MONTH?

  • The USA remains the largest domestic market in the world this month, by a considerable margin of 15.9 million more seats than second placed China.
  • The USA domestic market is up 3.1% on last March with 88.1 million seats.
  • China's domestic market continues to see strong growth, up 7.8% on March 2023, which equates to 5.2 million more seats than the same month last year.  
  • The domestic markets with the weakest performances this month are Mexico, which is down 13.2% on March 2023, and Brazil, which is down 3.3%. 

 

AIRLINE CAPACITY BY REGION | MARCH 2024


 

WHICH WORLD REGION HAS MOST FLIGHT CAPACITY?


  • Global capacity will reach 476.9 million this month, an increase of 8.0% on the same month in 2023, which equates to 35.2 million more seats.
  • Every region of the world is growing this month compared to the same month in 2023 apart from Central America where capacity has dropped by 0.5%, 55,890 seats.
  • The region seeing the highest percentage growth is Central Asia with capacity increasing by 25.8%, equivalent to a 513,658 seat increase.
  • There is also strong growth in North East Asia where capacity is up 14.0m seats, equivalent to a 14.6% increase, and in the Caribbean where capacity is up 625,253 seats, equivalent to a 14.4% increase as well as Upper South America where capacity is up by 1.1m seats, a 13.8% increase.
  • The regions seeing the slowest rate of growth are Central America and Central/Western Africa where capacity is flat on last month.   

AIRLINE FREQUENCY AND CAPACITY STATS DECODED


 

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.

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