Seoul-Jeju Named World's Busiest Air Route... Tokyo-Sapporo Ranks Second

The busiest air route in the world has been identified as the Seoul-Jeju route.

According to the aviation industry on August 10, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced in its "2024 World Air Transport Statistics" released on August 4 that the Gimpo-Jeju route, with 13.2 million passengers last year, was the world's busiest air route.

Strengthened baggage screening at Gimpo International Airport is causing consecutive flight delays. As of 10 a.m. on the 24th, most flights are delayed, and the delay situation is expected to continue until late afternoon. The photo shows the domestic boarding gate at Gimpo Airport on the day. Photo by Kim Hyunmin kimhyun81@

The second busiest route was Tokyo-Sapporo, with 9.2 million passengers, followed by Tokyo-Fukuoka in third place with 9 million passengers. Other routes in the top ten included Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City in fourth place (8 million), Melbourne-Sydney in fifth (7.2 million), Jeddah-Riyadh in sixth (6.3 million), Mumbai-Delhi in seventh (5.9 million), Tokyo-Okinawa in eighth (5.6 million), Shanghai-Shenzhen in ninth (5.3 million), and Beijing-Shanghai in tenth (5.3 million).

By continent, the busiest route in North America was New York-Los Angeles (2.2 million passengers). In Central and South America, it was Bogota-Medellin (3.8 million passengers). In Europe, Barcelona-Mallorca (2 million passengers) was the busiest, while in Africa, the Cape Town-Johannesburg route (3.3 million passengers) topped the list.

Meanwhile, the United States remained the world's largest air travel market. Last year, the U.S. attracted 876 million passengers, a 5.2% increase from the previous year. China ranked second with 741 million passengers, up 18.7%. The United Kingdom was third, with 261 million passengers.