The busiest international and domestic airline routes have been named for 2024

Asia is powering travel’s big comeback from the depths of the pandemic with seven entries in the top 10 busiest international airline routes, and eight of the busiest domestic routes.

Travel data firm OAG has crunched the numbers and there’s a new number one this year – Hong Kong-Taipei with just over 6.7 million seats.

The route, which takes under two hours, was top in 2019 but slipped to third last year.

READ MORE: Why the old-school family holiday is best – and cheapest

The capacity on the route grew by 48 per cent compared to the previous year, yet it remains 15 per cent lower than the levels seen in 2019.

The route linked Egypt’s capital Cairo with Saudi city to Jeddah remained second with under 5.4 million seats, with Seoul-Toyko just behind.

Last year’s number one route, Kuala Lumpur-Singapore, slipped to fourth.

READ MORE: We were one of the first to sail on Disney’s newest cruise ship

The best airlines in the world for 2024 revealed

Domestically, there’s no change as South Korea’s Jeju International-Seoul Gimpo dominates, as it has for years, with more than 14 million seats. That’s almost equivalent to 39,000 daily seats. The short one-hour route links the capital with the holiday island.

While the capacity is up slightly on 2023 levels, it is still lagging 19 per cent behind 2019.

Two Japanese routes fill out the next two spots, Sapporo New Chitose-Tokyo Haneda, and Fukuoka also to Tokyo Haneda.

READ MORE: Top trending international destinations for Aussies in 2025

Melbourne-Sydney stays steady as the world’s fifth busiest domestic route with just over 9 million seats.

OAG looks at the largest volume of scheduled airline seats during the year and the data is for flights in both directions on each route.

Global routes

1. Hong Kong – Taipei 6,781,577
2. Cairo – Jeddah 5,469,274
3. Seoul Incheon – Tokyo Narita 5,410,456
4. Kuala Lumpur – Singapore Changi 5,382,163
5. Seoul Incheon – Osaka Kansai 4,982,769
6. Dubai – Riyadh 4,306,599
7. Bangkok – Hong Kong 4,201,802
8. Jakarta – Singapore Changi 4,069,071
9. Bangkok – Singapore Changi 4,033,344
10. New York JFK – London Heathrow 4,011,235

Domestic routes

1. Jeju International – Seoul Gimpo, South Korea 14,183,719 seats
2. Sapporo New Chitose – Tokyo Haneda, Japan 11,931,572
3. Fukuoka – Tokyo Haneda, Japan 11,335,551
4. Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 10,631,435
5. Melbourne – Sydney, Australia 9,217,377
6. Jeddah – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 8,700,415
7. Tokyo Haneda – Okinawa Naha, Japan 8,033,641
8. Mumbai – Delhi, India 7,963,686
9. Beijing – Shanghai Hongqiao, China 7,714,758
10. Guangzhou Baiyun – Shanghai Hongqiao, China 7,010,321

This story was originally published by Stuff and has been reproduced here with permission.