In 2024 the world’s 20 top airlines scheduled 15.2 million one-way flights, offering a total capacity of 2.5 billion seats to destinations in every corner of the globe. This new infographic highlights the airlines performing best on a range of key aviation industry metrics.
High Fliers: how did the top airlines perform in 2024?
Which airline had most seat capacity in 2024?
American Airlines scheduled most seats of all the airlines – 275.5 million, an increase of 6.5% compared to 2023. Unsurprisingly, this means they also had the most flights, with 2.2 million. US airlines Delta, Southwest and United slotted into 2nd-4th places on the list of carriers with most capacity, while fifth place went to Dublin headquartered Ryanair, which increased capacity by 9% year-on-year to 209.6 million seats on 1.1 million flights.
Which airline had the most ASKs in 2024?
The 20 major airlines worldwide (based on scheduled seats) counted a collective 4.7 trillion Available Seat Kilometers, or ASKs, a metric derived by multiplying the number of available seats on a flight by the distance flown in kilometers.
United Airlines flew the furthest per seat, clocking up 507.1 billion total ASKs. This represents a 7% increase on 2023. American Airlines (4.8bn ASKs) and Delta (4.7bn ASKs) are second and third on the list of top airlines for ASKs, while the first non-US domiciled carrier, Emirates, comes in fourth with 3.6bn.
Which airline flies the most routes?
Among the top 20 airlines for capacity, Ryanair operated the most different routes in 2024, with 5,442 routes in its schedule, mostly within Europe. In comparison, United Airlines had the second highest number of routes at 2,653, less than half the number of Ryanair.
Which airline has the most planes?
The numbers outlined here could have been higher, but in 2024 many aircraft deliveries were delayed due to various supply chain and resource issues. Still, tied for largest fleet were Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, both in possession of 1006 aircraft. IndiGo led in aircraft orders, with 951 on the books.
Which airlines only fly internationally?
Of the 20 major airlines, two offer no domestic capacity; Emirates and Qatar Airways. On the other end of the scale, the US and Chinese airlines all offer more domestic capacity than international, and Southwest is the carrier with the highest percentage of domestic capacity; 97.1% of its flights are within the US.
Which airlines fly furthest?
Less than 50% of the world’s major airlines fly to every region of the world. When we split the top 20 airlines’ capacity out into IATA-defined regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Middle East and Southwest Pacific), we find that nine carriers have some flights going to each. These are: Qatar Airways, Air Canada, British Airways, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, Air China, China Southern, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
These facts about major airlines are derived from OAG’s Takeoff, which delivers key metrics for each of the world’s 20 major airlines including:
- Overall Seat Capacity
- Frequency
- ASKs
- Routes
- Average Fares
- Fleet Composition
- Top Regional and Country Markets
- Top Airports
