The nation’s busiest flight route for 2024 runs from Orlando to Atlanta, a travel analyst has found — with the news coming just ahead of another record-breaking holiday travel season.
OAG, a data platform for the global travel industry, announced that a total of 3.4 million airline seats flew between the theme park capital of the nation and the city that is headquarters to Coca-Cola, the Home Depot, and the world’s busiest airport hub, Hartfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).
The 90-minute flight is about to get even more popular as Conde Nast Traveler and WalletHub named Orlando as one of the top 10 global travel destinations for New Year’s, and Orlando International Airport (MCO) predicted a jam-packed holiday period.
For the 17-day holiday period starting Friday and continuing through Jan. 5, 2.9 million passengers are expected at the airport — a 1% increase over last year’s record-breaking season, the airport announced Thursday.
The busiest travel day is expected to be Saturday, Dec. 28, with more than 192,000 total arrivals and departures.
Orlando offers nonstop flights to over 170 destinations worldwide, but only four carriers offer service for the 405-mile journey from Orlando to Atlanta that fueled MCO’s rise to the top of the list. Delta offers 30 daily trips between the cities, Southwest offers eight, Frontier varies between four and six and Spirit offers two to four.
“Because Atlanta is a hub many of these flights from MCO may go to Atlanta for a connection to a different destination,” Orlando airport spokesperson Angela Starke said in an email.
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OAG Chief Analyst John Grant said in an interview that growing demand for the route has pushed it ahead of others that have fallen in capacity. He didn’t know the last year the route was No. 1, but said it was before the pandemic.
“The theme parks are obviously a very large part of the market but there are other things there like the large meeting and conference industry and aerospace companies,” Grant said. “So whereas the other routes are perhaps a bit more susceptible to variances and changes in wider economic circumstances the probability is that Orlando-Atlanta will be more resilient against those issues in the coming years.”
OAG creates its annual list based on an airline’s total capacity on a particular route, or the planned total number of seats an airline expects to offer, Grant said. The rankings are based on travel in both directions on a particular route.
So who’s #2? According to OAG, Honolulu to Kahului ranked second this year with 3.4 million seats, after claiming the top spot in 2023. The route between Oahu and Maui has 17% higher capacity now than in 2019. Just 14,941 seats behind is Las Vegas to Los Angeles, which ranks third.