From the check-in counter to security, your boarding gate, passport control and baggage claim, airports are a flurry of non-stop action and queues. The only thing more chaotic? Hopping on one of the world’s busiest domestic flights. If you live in Australia, chances are you’ve taken one of these routes at least once in your life.
To wrap up 2024, aviation data company OAG has released its annual ranking of the world’s busiest domestic flight routes, based on the total number of scheduled seats. The Melbourne to Sydney route soared into first place as Australia’s busiest domestic flight path in 2024 and also ranked as the fifth most popular worldwide. A whopping 9,217,377 passengers flew between the two capital cities in 2024, which is equivalent to more than 25,000 daily seats travelling in either direction.
Although the Melbourne to Sydney route maintained its position as the fifth busiest domestic flight path since 2019, it saw a one per cent drop in volume from 2023 and a seven per cent decline from 2019. This appears to be a trend, with more than half of the top ten busiest routes also recording a decrease in annual seats.
Aside from Melbourne to Sydney, every other route in the world’s top ten busiest domestic flights was located in Asia. Rising to take the top spot was the route between Jeju International Airport and Seoul Gimpo in South Korea, which saw a three per cent increase in capacity to 14.18 million seats this year.
In second place was the Sapporo to Tokyo route, which tallied an impressive 11.93 million seats in 2024, followed closely by Fukuoka to Tokyo and Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. The biggest year-on-year increase came from the Saudi Arabian route between Jeddah and Riyadh, which surged ten per cent to 8.7 million seats. Meanwhile, the Guangzhou to Shanghai route recorded the highest growth since 2019, also climbing ten per cent to reach 7.01 million seats in 2024.
These are the 10 busiest domestic flight routes of 2024:
- Jeju to Seoul
- Sapporo to Tokyo
- Fukuoka to Tokyo
- Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City
- Melbourne to Sydney
- Jeddah to Riyadh
- Tokyo to Okinawa
- Mumbai to Delhi
- Beijing to Shanghai
- Guangzhou to Shanghai