OAG reported (06-May-2018) Kuala Lumpur-Singapore is the world's busiest international air passenger route, with 30,537 services in the 12 months to Feb-2018. The five busiest routes are all located in the Asia Pacific, with Hong Kong-Taipei second, Jakarta-Singapore third, Hong Kong-Shanghai Pudong fourth and Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur fifth. Other key Asia Pacific highlights include:
- 14 intra Asia routes were ranked in the top 20, including eight in North Asia, four in Southeast Asia and two between North and Southeast Asia;
- Hong Kong is the busiest Asian airport hub featuring in six routes, followed by Singapore in four and Osaka Kansai and Seoul Incheon in three each;
- Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta, Taipei and Shanghai Pudong each featured on two of the busiest global routes;
- The highest on time performance among the Asian routes was Osaka Kansai-Taipei with 83%, followed by Bangkok-Singapore (80%) and Seoul Incheon-Osaka Kansai (78%);
- All eight Asian routes feature at least six competing airlines, with Osaka-Taipei operated by 11 airlines. By contrast, more mature European and North American routes like Dublin-London Heathrow and Chicago-Toronto show have competing airlines;
- Asia has a relatively high ratio of LCCs in operation, with five city pairs counting over 40% LCC penetration. [more - original PR]