This London flight route was officially one of the busiest in the world in 2023

London is home to some of the world’s biggest and busiest air hubs. Heathrow on its own isn’t just the world’s best-connected airport and Europe’s busiest aviation hub, with the UK’s busiest terminal (Terminal 5): it was recently named the fourth-busiest airport in the entire world. 

So it’s no surprise, really, that one flight route out of LHR was also one of the planet’s busiest in 2023. Flight data experts OAG recently revealed the world’s busiest international routes this year and London Heathrow from New York’s JFK airport was named the eighth-busiest. 

JFK-LHR apparently saw a massive 3,878,590 seats in 2023, which is a 24 percent increase on last year and one percent up on 2019, when air travel was at a pre-pandemic peak. 

Despite those increases, however, JFK-LHR has actually fallen in OAG’s rankings. Last year the route was the world’s fourth-busiest, but it’s since been overtaken by services that only really got going with a full, proper schedule in 2023. 

The title of busiest international route went to services from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore Changi, which had 4,891,952 seats in 2023.

Here is the full list of the world’s top ten busiest flight routes in 2023. 

1. Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to Singapore Changi (Singapore)
2. Cairo (Egypt) to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)
3. Hong Kong to Taipei
4. Seoul Incheon (South Korea) to Osaka Kansai (Japan)
5. Seoul Incheon (South Korea) to Tokyo Narita (Japan)
6. Dubai (UAE) to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)
7. Jakarta (Indonesia) to Singapore Changi (Singapore)
8. New York JFK (USA) to London Heathrow (UK)
9. Bangkok (Thailand) to Singapore Changi (Singapore)
10. Bangkok (Thailand) to Seoul Incheon (South Korea) 

You can find out more about these routes and the data on the OAG website here.

Did you see that British Airways is launching flights from London to one of the ‘world’s best destinations’ in 2024?

Plus: everything you need to know about London tube and train strikes in January 2024. 

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