The route between Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) and Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA) was the busiest airport pair connection in Africa last year. This is one of the many facts contained in the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA’s) newly released 'World Air Transport Statistics 2025' report. (IATA is the global representative body for the airline industry.) The number of people who flew between CTIA and ORTIA last year came to 3.4-million.

For comparison, in 2025 the busiest airport pair in Latin America was in Colombia, between Bogotá (El Dorado International Airport) and Medellín (José María Córdova International Airport), which saw 3.5-million passengers. The busiest domestic airport pair in North America was New York (John F Kennedy International Airport) to Los Angeles International (2.2-million passengers) while the busiest airport pair in Europe was in Spain, between Barcelona (Josep Tarradellas-El Prat Airport) and Palma de Mallorca Airport (2.1-million passengers).

But the ten top airport pairs were all in Asia. Jeju-Seoul Gimpo in South Korea led, with 13.3-million passengers. Next were Sapporo-Tokyo Haneda in Japan (9.6-million), Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda, also in Japan (9.5-million), Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam (8.9-million) and Jeddah-Riyadh in Saudi Arabia (7-million). Then came Melbourne Tullamarine-Sydney, in Australia (also 7-million), Shanghai Hongqiao-Shenzhen in China (6.2-million), Tokyo Haneda-Okinawa, again in Japan (5.7-million), Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji-Delhi in India (5.5-million) and Beijing Capital-Shanghai Hongqiao, in China (also 5.5-million).

The countries with the biggest passenger markets last year were, in first place, the US, with 890.1-million, 1.6% increase, year-on-year (y-o-y), followed by China (776.1-million, up 4.8% y-o-y) and then the UK (269.7-million, a y-o-y increase of 3.4%). Thereafter came Spain (252.7-million, up 5%), Japan (223.5-million, up 9.2%), India (218.2-million, up 3.3%), Italy (187.3-million, up 5.8%), Germany (163.8-million, up 3.4%), France (152.6-million, up 2.2%) and Türkiye (129.3-million, up 2.9%).

The report also highlighted the increase in the use, over the past six years, of the newest generation of widebody airliners, which were more efficient. So, between 2019 and 2025 the number of flights operated by Boeing 787 Dreamliners jumped by 40.8% and those operated by Airbus A350s soared by 117.4% (from a lower base number in 2019 than the 787). On the other hand, Airbus A380 Superjumbos flew 24.4% fewer flights last year, compared with 2019.

Regarding single-aisle airliners, all variants of the Boeing 737 combined flew the most flights last year, totalling 10.8-million, a 3.1% increase over 2019. Then came the Airbus A320, with 8.7-million flights (up 7.6%), the Airbus A321, at 4.2-million flights (a rise of 61.6%), the Embraer E170/190 family, with 2.7-million flights (up 2.8%), the Airbus A319 (the smallest member of the A320 family) at 1.4-million flights (a fall of -34.3%), and the Airbus A220 family, which totalled 530 000 flights, an increase of 770.4% over 2019.

As for widebodies, the Boeing 787 recorded 795 000 flights last year, while the Airbus A350 operated 434 000 flights. The number of Airbus A380 flights last year was 90 000. (The Boeing 747 is now almost extinct in passenger operations but it is not clear why IATA did not list the Boeing 777.)

The statistics report used data collected from 1 315 airlines from around the world, including more than 250 international airlines which provided specific data for it.