World's Top 10 Commercial Airline Routes by Revenue, 2017-2018

[muppet]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Heathrow is 2nd by international passengers, just barely ahead of Hong Kong. Dubai has been #1 for 5 years in a row.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...senger_traffic

Ah okay, sounds like London is starting to feel the brunt of its lack of expansion already, Heathrow was like no 1 since I can remember. For the last decade they've been arguing about where the next big runway's going to go, all the while with Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam capitalising much faster on the new Asian routes.

London's currently capital of world travel due to its positioning between North America and Europe, but Dubai's placement looks set to usurp it, fast making itself the hub for an even larger catchment of 2-4 billion people.

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Is EWR the name for all the LA area airports? Burbank/LAX/OC to SF/Oakland/SJ have to be among the busiest routes. Or is EWR Newark?

Also surprised NYC-Miami and NYC-Chicago aren't on list. Maybe because the NYC market is spit between JFK/La Guardia/Newark?

I believe this is revenue dollars, not busiest passenger routes, although several are both. The more expensive to fly on routes generate more revenue.

Several of these big international routes may drop due to more direct service coming on line to smaller cities. Also not sure how Brexit will effect UK routes in the future. I like to call the 787, A350 and new 777 hub busters. Those aircraft will help kill both the A380 and 747 8I in the long run.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by mousquet

...
That's how Air France (when those laughable morons are not on strike) set up a low-cost subsidiary of theirs, 'Joon'. That's actually a South Korean female first name, but whatever.

It's primarily a family name in Korea, and when it's used as a given name, it can be both male or female. I have a good friend who is a male Korean Joon. It's also a really old name, so it's not "South Korean," it's just Korean.

[JManc]

I for sure though it would be Moline, IL to St. Louis.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by muppet

Ah okay, sounds like London is starting to feel the brunt of its lack of expansion already, Heathrow was like no 1 since I can remember. For the last decade they've been arguing about where the next big runway's going to go, all the while with Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam capitalising much faster on the new Asian routes.

London's currently capital of world travel due to its positioning between North America and Europe, but Dubai's placement looks set to usurp it, fast making itself the hub for an even larger catchment of 2-4 billion people.

Yes, Heathrow was #1 for a very long time. Even with expansion I think Heathrow would have eventually ceded to some place in the Middle East. Dubai is in the sweet spot between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Even that 171 million passenger figure for all London airports will likely get surpassed by a city in Asia. It feels like it's more a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'. Asia will eventuallly dwarf the West in almost every metric.

Surprisingly, Toronto Pearson looks destined to become the #1 airport in America by international passengers. This segment of air travel is growing quickly at Pearson and it's not that far behind JFK now.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Surprisingly, Toronto Pearson looks destined to become the #1 airport in America by international passengers. This segment of air travel is growing quickly at Pearson and it's not that far behind JFK now.

YYZ has U.S. Customs & Global Entry facilities making it much easier to use it as a connection and I noticed a lot more flights going through there in the last few years. United/ Lufthansa/ ANA/ etc. all code-share with Air Canada as well.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by JManc

YYZ has U.S. Customs & Global Entry facilities making it much easier to use it as a connection and I noticed a lot more flights going through there in the last few years. United/ Lufthansa/ ANA/ etc. all code-share with Air Canada as well.

Pearson has always had lots of international passengers but Air Canada is now trying to turn it into a big global hub. The idea is to be a hub for people traveling between Europe and the United States. They're only a few years in and the airport is already seeing strong steady growth in non-domestic traffic.


Pearson: growth in international passenger traffic

2014: 7.2%
2015: 7.6%
2016: 7.1%
2017: 8.1%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...017_statistics

[JManc]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Pearson has always had lots of international passengers but Air Canada is now trying to turn it into a big global hub. The idea is to be a hub for people traveling between Europe and the United States. They're only a few years in and the airport is already seeing strong steady growth in non-domestic traffic.


Pearson: growth in international passenger traffic

2014: 7.2%
2015: 7.6%
2016: 7.1%
2017: 8.1%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...017_statistics

I fly almost exclusively with United and I either have to connect through IAD or EWR (if I can't get a direct flight) but YYZ has now become just as common of an option and are often more competitive in fares.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Pearson has always had lots of international passengers but Air Canada is now trying to turn it into a big global hub. The idea is to be a hub for people traveling between Europe and the United States. They're only a few years in and the airport is already seeing strong steady growth in non-domestic traffic.


Pearson: growth in international passenger traffic

2014: 7.2%
2015: 7.6%
2016: 7.1%
2017: 8.1%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...017_statistics

Obviously being the international hub of Canada means a lot, but the last time I checked, roughly half of the international destinations out of Toronto-Pearson are to the Caribbean and Latin American locales, example: you can fly to 10 Cuban cities nonstop from Toronto and the servce is mainly seasonal. I wonder percentage of intl passengers are actually Canadians looking for a warmer winter?

[dimondpark]

Here is the latest annual data from the US Department of Transportation regarding international passenger volume.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by JManc

I fly almost exclusively with United and I either have to connect through IAD or EWR (if I can't get a direct flight) but YYZ has now become just as common of an option and are often more competitive in fares.

Do you think some Americans will hesitate to use an airline from another country they're not familiar with or is cost/convenience the determining factor?

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Obviously being the international hub of Canada means a lot, but the last time I checked, roughly half of the international destinations out of Toronto-Pearson are to the Caribbean and Latin American locales, example: you can fly to 10 Cuban cities nonstop from Toronto and the servce is mainly seasonal. I wonder percentage of intl passengers are actually Canadians looking for a warmer winter?

It isn't being developed as the international hub of Canada. Montreal YUL and Vancouver YVR are also being developed along the same lines. The latter as a hub for people traveling between Asia and the United States.

There's definitely a lot of winter getaway trips made by southern Ontarians but they likely constitute a small portion of international traffic. It only happens for a few months of the year. The bulk of the international traffic comes from people vacationing/visiting relatives in Toronto or using it as a stopover to somewhere else.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Do you think some Americans will hesitate to use an airline from another country they're not familiar with or is cost/convenience the determining factor?

Air Canada isn't exactly Kabul Air. I think most Americans (I was) would be totally fine. The issue is miles which they get with their own airline(s).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

I fly almost exclusively with United and I either have to connect through IAD or EWR (if I can't get a direct flight) but YYZ has now become just as common of an option and are often more competitive in fares.

I go to South America every winter and about 3 years ago I noticed that Air Canada, United's Star Alliance partner, was ridiculously cheaper than the other flight options from NYC to Rio. I usually fly Delta, so it was the only time I ever used Air Canada to fly inter-continental. It was one of the emptiest long-haul international flights I've ever been on. On the return flight the plane was at best 30% full, and this was during the peak travel season to South America.

Apparently Air Canada killed their service to Rio after the Olympics: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/air...ghts-1.3678688

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Do you think some Americans will hesitate to use an airline from another country they're not familiar with or is cost/convenience the determining factor?

If someone is hesitant about getting on a foreign carrier then it would really limit their options on where they could visit.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Pearson has always had lots of international passengers but Air Canada is now trying to turn it into a big global hub. The idea is to be a hub for people traveling between Europe and the United States.

With Air Canada, you can fly direct from Toronto to some unusual American destinations, like Omaha, Hartford and Harrisburg, PA, and also to some very secondary European airports like Bucharest, Budapest and Providenciales.

Obviously this isn't a huge contributor to YYZ's international stats, but a flight from Harrisburg to Budapest with the fewest connections is probably through Toronto (You can't fly from Harrisburg to an NYC airport).

[nito]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Yes, Heathrow was #1 for a very long time. Even with expansion I think Heathrow would have eventually ceded to some place in the Middle East. Dubai is in the sweet spot between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Even that 171 million passenger figure for all London airports will likely get surpassed by a city in Asia. It feels like it's more a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'. Asia will eventuallly dwarf the West in almost every metric.

I can easily see lists for the busiest airports become increasingly dominated by Asian hubs, but over the long-term I suspect a lot of that growth will be through domestic, rather than international growth, which will benefit the established hubs. Tourism from emerging markets to Paris, London, etc… will be unprecedented in the coming decades.

On the discussion of Heathrow, the airport has been capacity constrained for a considerable period of time now (c.98%) due to having only two runways. That Heathrow has continued to see passenger growth is pretty much down to a remodelling of the airport to increase throughput, larger capacity planes and higher utilisation of planes. A third runway has been on the cards for a long time (and is still someway off), and there has been talk for several decades for a replacement of Heathrow which hasn’t come to fruition.
The other London airports fare little better with one runway each; Gatwick has been pushing for a second runway for a long time.

The latest plan is for a high-speed line that bypasses London to directly connect Heathrow and Gatwick (in just 15mins) and Birmingham and Manchester airports, in essence creating a mega-hub connected within 80mins. Just building more runways would be a start!


https://expedition.uk.com/thinking/h...-speed-trains/

[isaidso]

^^ I don't think one can assume that these emerging markets will have the same tastes as the West who have historically favoured other Western cities like Paris, London, etc. London and Paris will surely see big increases from east Asia, for instance, but their top choices might be other Asian cities. Bangkok is already the most visited city so it might be happening already.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

With Air Canada, you can fly direct from Toronto to some unusual American destinations, like Omaha, Hartford and Harrisburg, PA, and also to some very secondary European airports like Bucharest, Budapest and Providenciales.

Obviously this isn't a huge contributor to YYZ's international stats, but a flight from Harrisburg to Budapest with the fewest connections is probably through Toronto (You can't fly from Harrisburg to an NYC airport).

Both Air Canada and Pearson are very connected and its crucial in their plans to turn YYZ into a global hub. YYZ was ranked 5th best connected airport in the world last year.


Source Image: The Moodiee Davitt Report website

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by JManc

YYZ

Great instrumental or greatest instrumental?

[JManc]

^ The greatest or at the very least, the airport with the greatest instrumental.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Obviously this isn't a huge contributor to YYZ's international stats, but a flight from Harrisburg to Budapest with the fewest connections is probably through Toronto (You can't fly from Harrisburg to an NYC airport).

Yes you can, United flies into EWR.