Summary
- The world’s largest airline is difficult to determine due to varying business models, fleet sizes, and workforce. Metrics like revenue, assets, and market capitalization can help gauge size.
- Delta Air Lines leads in revenue, asset value, and market capitalization with $54 billion, $73 billion, and $21 billion respectively.
- American Airlines leads in number of employees and operates the largest fleet of 1,002 aircraft.
You’d think that answering the question of which airline stands as the world’s largest would be a far simpler task than it actually is. The answer is difficult to arrive at quicky, as it depends on which metric you have decided to use in order to measure airline size.
Airlines across the globe do not operate on identical business models, with identical fleet and network strategies, and with identical workforces. As a result, measuring which airline is the ‘biggest’ can actually prove quite a challenge. In this article, we’re going to tackle this challenge head-on and provide a variety of metrics by which you can make your determination about which carrier is the world’s largest.
The largest business
At the end of the day, airlines are simply businesses, and by measuring them as such, we can find at least one appropriate gauge for identifying the world’s largest carrier. While some may think measuring profits is the best way to identify the biggest airline, these numbers are volatile and don’t paint a clear year-after-year picture.
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There is one airline, however, that leads the way in three major business metrics. With a revenue of nearly $54 billion, legacy carrier Delta Air Lines leads the way in this category. Furthermore, the carrier also leads the way in terms of asset value and market capitalization, which are over $73 billion and $21 billion, respectively.
Delta’s Network Continues To Grow
Delta’s immense network and continual growth over time is to thank for this massive expansion. Furthermore, the company’s business model has proven dynamic and adaptable, allowing Delta to achieve these impressive metrics.
Another important contender
While Delta leads the way on most financial metrics, US legacy carrier American Airlines isn’t out of the conversation. The airline leads the way in a few important metrics.
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First, in terms of the number of employees, American sits on top of the leaderboard with over 129,000. American Airlines Group also operates the world’s largest fleet of 1,002 aircraft, according to ch-aviation, and flies the largest number of scheduled passenger-kilometers. As a result, American may just have the most extensive operations of any airline.
Others in the conversation
While on most metrics either American or Delta leads the way, there are a few other categories in which neither of these two carriers comes out on top. One place where a different carrier leads the way more than any other is in terms of countries served.
Turkish Airlines, the star-alliance flag carrier of Turkey, serves nearly 130 different nations across the globe. Its closest competition in this category, Air France, only manages to serve 91 different countries.
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Another network-related category in which American or Delta isn’t on top is in terms of the number of routes operated. European ultra-low-cost carrier Ryanair wins this battle, flying between nearly 1,800 different city pairs.
There is a final metric that is worth discussing here, and it involves the number of aircraft owned. United, at over 700, doesn’t maintain as large of a fleet as American, but does own more aircraft than its competitors do.
Sources: Forbes, Aviation Week, ch-aviation