Jeju to Seoul Gimpo is the busiest airline route of 2025 with 14.4 million seats scheduled, a modest 1% increase versus 2024. There is room yet for growth on this route, which is still 17% short of regaining its capacity level of 2019. Seven carriers operate on this intensely competitive route.

The second and third placed routes are both in Japan: Sapporo New Chitose (CTS) – Tokyo Haneda (HND) and Fukuoka (FUK) – Tokyo Haneda (HND) with 12.1M and 11.5M seats respectively.

The top ten comprises entirely of domestic flights, and Asia Pacific dominates with 9 out of 10 being in the region. The one route outside of Asia Pacific is fifth placed Jeddah (JED) – Riyadh (RUH), which has seen the fastest growth of any top ten route. 9.8M seats on JED-RUH represent annual growth of 13%. Fourth placed Hanoi (HAN) to Ho Chi Minh (SGN) also grew by 4% YoY and tenth placed Shanghai (SHA) – Shenzhen (SZX) has seen capacity increase by 5% to move into the top ten from its eleventh spot last year.

Focusing on cross-border flights, Hong Kong (HKG) – Taipei (TPE) is the busiest route of 2025 with 6.8M seats followed by Cairo (CAI) – Jeddah (JED) with 5.8M seats and Kuala Lumpur (KUL) – Singapore Changi (SIN) with 5.6M.

OAG's Chief Analyst, John Grant commented: "The importance and scale of these routes cannot be underestimated and highlights the strength of emergent markets around the world. For Asia Pacific to be home to nine out of the ten largest routes in the world, all of which are domestic, is a remarkable indication of how these routes have recovered in recent times and their significance to the airlines operating those sectors."

Find global and regional rankings of the world's busiest airline routes in 2025 and methodology on OAG's website.

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