If you think the main trans-Atlantic routes are among the world’s busiest skyways, you’d have lots of company—and you’d all be wrong.
It turns out that nearly all of the world’s most heavily-served routes, the ones with the most flights between two points, are domestic routes, including all of the top 15, and even the busiest international routes tend to be between neighbors, according to data from OAG
So who’s the overall winner? Over 76,000 flights a year, more than 200 a day, connect Seoul to the popular Korean vacation island of Jejudo. Second was Australian, with Melbourne-to-Sydney getting 54,102 departures, followed by India’s Mumbai-to-Delhi pair at 45,188.
The busiest international routes is Kuala Lumpur to neighboring Singapore, with 30,187 flights, then Hong Kong-Taipei with 28,447. Europe’s busiest is Barcelona to Madrid, 18,812; Latin America’s is Lima to Santiago with over 10,369. In the U.S., there were 15,587 flights between New York and San Francisco, which is also the busiest long-haul route, beating the run between New York and London, which had just over 14,000.
