Middle East Dominates Rankings Of World’s Busiest Airline Routes

Middle East Dominates Rankings Of World’s Busiest Airline Routes

Emirates Airline planes lined up at a terminal at Dubai International airport. Flights between cities in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have become the busiest airline routes in the world, overtaking ones between Asian hubs that had been the leaders before the Covid-19 crisis. The latest rankings were compiled by aviation industry specialists OAG, based on the routes with the largest number of scheduled seats in the 12 months from October 2021 to September 2022. On that basis, the world's busiest route was between the Egyptian capital Cairo and Saudi Arabia's second city of Jeddah, on the Red Sea coast. There was an average of 35 daily flights between the two hubs over the past 12 months, with a total of 3. 2 million scheduled seats. Nine carriers operate on this route, which is also ranked by OAG as the most competitive route in the world. The second busiest route was also in the Middle East, connecting Dubai International airport in the UAE with King Khalid International airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh. There were 40 flights a day, a few more than on the Cairo-Jeddah route but with slightly fewer available seats at 3. 19 million.