OAG, a global travel data provider with headquarters in the UK has named the Cairo-Jeddah route with 3.2 million seats as the busiest air route for the year 2022.
According to airlineratings.com, the Middle Eastern airports played an important role with four of the Top 10 airports operating on high-density routes within the region and a further three starting or ending in the Middle East.
According to the OAG report the busiest international route is between Cairo and Jeddah (CAI-JED) which has 35 daily flights, and this route had the largest volume of scheduled seats at 3.2 million in the last 12 months.
The next busiest is Dubai and Riyadh (DXB-RUH) which has a higher daily frequency with 40 flights per day but is just slightly behind in seat volume at 3.19 million.
This OAG noted that the shift in focus to the Middle East partly reflects the slower pace of a travel recovery across Asia, where previously many of the key Asian trunk routes dominated the busiest international routes, and the ambitions of Saudia Arabia towards their Vision 2030 goal which will see air traffic grow substantially in the next decade.
The report found that India is also seeing an increase in route capacity with two routes in the Top 10, operating from Mumbai to Dubai (BOM-DXB) and Delhi to Dubai (DEL-DXB).
The OAG also reported on the Top Ten business domestic routes and found that nine were within the Asia Pacific region.
The busiest was between Jeju International and Seoul Gimpo International Airport (CJU-GMP) with 224 flights per day on this short flight between South Korea’s capital and the country’s popular
leisure destination.