Summary

  • Global seat capacity will reach 510 million seats in June, with North America, Western Europe, and Northeast China leading the way.
  • Asia-Pacific accounts for 36% of global capacity, followed by Europe and North America, with Western Europe nearly matching North American capacity.
  • Top international routes include Spain to the UK and Mexico to the US, with China showing significant growth in capacity on various routes.

With the northern summer fast approaching, global seat capacity will reach 510 million seats in June, a solid 6.6% increase over June 2023. Three regions, North America, Western Europe, and Northeast China, have added more than six million seats this month, with US domestic capacity reaching 91 million seats, up 6.3% year-on-year and 21 million more seats than its nearest rival China.

What’s the global picture look like?

According to aviation analyst OAG, total global capacity will increase to 510 million seats in June, which is 31.7 million more than offered in June 2023. Of the 17 global regions listed in OAG’s Airline Frequency and Capacity Statistics, only one declined this month: Lower South America, although the region with the highest growth was Upper South America, at 15.6%.

Ryanair Boeing 737 and Wizz Air Airbus A320 in Lviv, Ukraine

Photo: Oleh Yatskiv | Shutterstock

Other regions to grow strongly year-on-year (YoY) were Eastern/Central Europe (14.1%), North Africa (13.3%), South Asia (11.3%), Central Asia (9.2%) and the Middle East (8.4%). In terms of YoY seat growth, Western Europe added 7.4 million, North America added 7 million, Northeast Asia added 6.5 million, Eastern/Central Europe 2.5 million, South Asia 2.4 million, the Middle East 1.8 million, and Southeast Asia 1.7 million.

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American Airlines was clearly the leader in adding more frequency, increasing flights by 17,200 (+10.1%) to 187,740, well ahead of second-placed Ryanair with an additional 9,100 flights (+9.8%), Delta Air Lines 8,018 flights (+5.7%), Aeroflot 5,900 (+25.1%) and IndiGo and Southwest Airlines who each added 5,038 flights, growing by 9.1% and 4.1% respectively.

Ryanair 737 boarding1 shutterstock_2314157867 (1)

Photo: Page Frederique | Shutterstock

With 187,740 flights in June, American Airlines leads the global listing, followed by Delta Air Lines (148,778), United Airlines (136,950), Southwest (127,415), Ryanair (102,316), China Eastern (71,948), China Southern (69,705) and IndiGo (60,641). Of the Top 20 carriers, only Air Canada and JetBlue reduced flights in June, dropping 204 and 2,097.

Asia-Pacific accounted for 36% of global capacity, with 182.3 million seats, followed by Europe, with 27% and 134.8 million seats, and North America, with 23% and 114.8 million seats. In June, Western Europe had 114.7 million seats available, almost identical to the North American capacity of 114.8 million.

Other market results

The world’s largest domestic market, by a significant margin, is the United States, with 91 million seats available in June, 21 million more than China. The US domestic capacity is up by 6.3% YoY, while China has grown by 1.4% to 70 million seats. The only other domestic markets in the Top 10 to grow are India (+11.2%), Spain (+7.9%) and Indonesia (+6.8%).

Delta-A350-livery

Photo: Delta

The ten largest domestic markets measured by OAG and their June capacity are the US (91.0m), China (70m), India (15.6m), Japan (11.6m), Brazil (9.4m), Indonesia (9.2m), Mexico (6.4m), Australia (6.2m), Canada (5.2m) and Spain (5.2m).

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OAG also keeps a scorecard of which countries visit each other the most, and in June, the top international country pair is Spain to the United Kingdom, with 5.3 million seats, 8.2% more than in June 2023. The Mexico to the US route will have 4.1 million seats available this month, a 7.7% YoY Increase.

All of the Top 20 markets have more capacity available than in June last year, but the fiercest growth is in China. Capacity on the China-Japan route is up by 891,000 seats or 130% YoY, while capacity on the China-Korea Republic route is up by 48% or 475,000 additional seats.

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