CAPA (Centre for Aviation) and Innovata recently published a run down of the biggest airlines and airports by capacity. The report shows the world’s top airlines, both traditional and low cost, and the top airports by number of seats per week.
Biggest traditional airlines
Companies topping the list of the 50 biggest airlines in the world by capacity (available seat kilometres) are United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Emirates in the top 3 positions. On this list the UK’s own British Airways comes in 7th with 3,049,528,888 available seat kilometres in 2012, a 2.7% increase in capacity compared to December of 2011. This is the second consecutive year that Britain’s flag carrier has ranked seventh.
World’s top 10 airlines by capacity:
- United Airlines – 6,149,398,758
- Delta Air Lines – 5,643,676,049
- Emirates – 4,992,911,535
- American Airlines – 4,800,884,481
- Southwest Airlines – 3,276,525,770
- Lufthansa – 3,158,824,795
- British Airways – 3,049,528,888
- Air France – 2,825,526,843
- China Southern – 2,596,677,741
- Singapore Airlines – 2,375,715,435
Biggest low cost carriers
Also ranked by capacity (available seat kilometres), were the low cost carriers. Within the top 5 there has been little movement compared to 2011, with Southwest Airlines continuing in 1st with 7.3% capacity increase compared to 2011, followed by Ryanair with a 7.2% decrease in capacity despite the airline’s success. Also among the top 5 LCCs list is the UK’s easyJet in the 4th position with a 6.4% increase in capacity.
Top 5 LCCs worldwide by capacity:
- Southwest Airlines – 3,276,525,770
- Ryanair – 1,476,213,184
- JetBlue Airways – 1,214,788,293
- easyJet – 1,124,069,015
- Gol – 913,465,718
Busiest airports
As for the world’s busiest airports, London Heathrow came in 4th with over 1,668,272 seats per week during 2012. During 2013 we’ll see if Dubai International Airport bumps Heathrow to the 5th place as it made a big jump in traffic during 2012 and into 2013.
Top 5 busiest airports, ranked by seats per week:
- Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport – 1,927,531
- Beijing Capital International Airport – 1,918,574
- Tokyo Haneda Airport – 1,813,291
- London Heathrow Airport – 1,668,272
- Dubai International Airport – 1,587,901
If you want to see the complete lists you can visit the CAPA website.
