Asia Pacific Dominates Air Travel But Americans Travel The Most

Key aviation statistics for year 2017 were released by IATA (International Air Transport Association) today. IATA is the major organisation in aviation industry, representing some 290 airlines, which together have 82% of global air traffic.

Based on total passengers carried on scheduled services by airlines, Asia Pacific carriers carried the largest number of passengers, totalling 1.5 billion passengers, an increase of 10.6% over 2016. Asia Pacific airlines commanded 36.3% of the market share.

European carriers came second with 1.1 billion passengers and enjoyed 26.3% of the market share. Followed closely in third position was the North American airlines with 942 million passengers which captured 23% of the market share.

Ranked by total scheduled passenger kilometers flown, American Airlines came top with 324 million, followed by Delta Air Lines at 316.3 million and United Airlines at 311 million. Emirates Airline trailed at 289 million in fourth. In fifth was Southwest Airlines at 208 million.

Once again, Asia Pacific region dominated.
1. Hong Kong – Taipei Taoyuan (5.4 million, up 1.8% from 2016)
2. Jakarta Soekarno Hatta – Singapore (3.3 million, up 0.8% from 2016)
3. Bangkok Suvarnabhumi – Hong Kong (3.1 million, increase of 3.5% from 2016)
4. Kuala Lumpur – Singapore (2.8 million, down. 0.3% from 2016)
5. Hong Kong – Seoul Incheon (2.7 million, down 2.2% from 2016)

Asia Pacific region dominated once more.
1. Jeju – Seoul Gimpo (13.5 million, up 14.8% over 2016)
2. Melbourne Tullamarine – Sydney (7.8 million, up 0.4% from 2016)
3. Fukuoka – Tokyo Haneda (7.6 million, an increase of 6.1% from 2016)
4. Sapporo – Tokyo Haneda (7.4 million, up 4.6% from 2016)
5. Beijing Capital – Shanghai Hongqiao (6.4 million, up 1.9% from 2016)

Worldwide, scheduled airlines carried 4.1 billion passengers, an increase of 7.3% over 2016, representing an additional 280 million trips by air.

The Americans took the honour as the most frequent flyers, followed by the Chinese and Indians.

1. United States of America (632 million, representing 18.6% of all passengers)
2. People’s Republic of China (555 million or 16.3% of all passengers)
3. India (161.5 million or 4.7% of all passengers)
4. United Kingdom (147 million or 4.3% of all passengers)
5. Germany (114.4 million or 3.4% of all passengers)

Once again, Star Alliance maintained its position as the largest airline alliance with 39% of total scheduled traffic by revenue passenger kilometers, followed by SkyTeam at 33% and Oneworld at 28%.

In 2017, the available seat kilometers (ASK) were 9,508 billion. The revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) were 7,748 billion, giving it a passenger load factor of 81.5%. This reflected a high utilisation of aircrafts.

Source for all data above:
62nd Edition of the World Air Transport Statistics (WATS), IATA