Airline Weekly presented data from Diio Mi this week on the largest aviation markets in the world based on 2018 seat miles scheduled.
The U.S. is the world’s aviation largest market — by a lot. The EU as a whole is larger than Chinese market. The UK is the biggest aviation market in Europe, so perhaps Brexit will be what causes China to grow larger than Europe.
Japan is a bigger market than India, though a decade from now will that still be the case? India has nearly doubled in the past seven years. (So has China.)
Indonesia has more than doubled in the last seven years which is why it’s now a larger market than Italy which is far more mature.
International airline trade group IATA projected that China’s aviation market would outstrip the U.S.’s by 2022. I’ve been skeptical of that. China has been the next big thing for years and continues to be next. Chinese growth appears to be slowing.
That isn’t to say China isn’t important. Though there’s interest in the route authorities American Airlines is dropping by ending Chicago – Shanghai and Chicago – Beijing service on the whole US airlines have been losing interest in China — and that’s going to make it tough for Chinese carriers to overcome policy barriers and allow more flights.
| Rank | Country | Seat Miles |
| 1 | U.S. | 1,351,836,177,391 |
| 2 | China | 710,515,404,477 |
| 3 | U.K. | 260,186,416,183 |
| 4 | Japan | 206,864,525,475 |
| 5 | U.A.E. | 194,905,460,634 |
| 6 | Germany | 184,712,087,820 |
| 7 | India | 181,386,280,692 |
| 8 | Australia | 167,510,399,345 |
| 9 | Spain | 165,852,833,762 |
| 10 | Canada | 149,090,212,388 |
| 11 | France | 145,650,936,861 |
| 12 | Russia | 137,845,754,996 |
| 13 | Brazil | 126,348,379,554 |
| 14 | Indonesia | 119,750,873,392 |
| 15 | Thailand | 117,810,095,279 |
| 16 | Turkey | 104,101,633,062 |
| 17 | Italy | 100,066,346,607 |
| 18 | South Korea | 99,655,368,300 |
| 19 | Hong Kong | 95,328,177,782 |
| 20 | Mexico | 93,869,883,555 |
Methodology matters a good bit here, since it’s not just number of flights or seats but factors distance. That boosts the ranking of the U.A.E. substantially.
Go Aussie Aussie Aussie, #8 with only 25 million population
“so perhaps Brexit will be what causes China to grow larger than Europe.”
??? UK will leave Europe? IMPOSSIBLE! They just will leave the E.U.
Europe is a continent and even they are an island, they are part of the european continent.
Who’s we?
Seriously…… that’s not cool
Confusing, HK is a small city. with 95,328,177,782 seat miles?
How are international flights treated?
3 things wrong with market sizes being ranked by “seat miles” :
1. that only tells us how much is being flown, but it doesn’t tell us how much the propensity of flight. by “Seat miles” metric, 10 people flying 10,000 miles (eg SYD-LHR) is the same as 200 people flying 500 miles (eg ORD-YYZ).
2. as you’ve noted in your footnote as well, if certain places have a disproportionate amount of traffic that’s merely passing through their super connecting hub, e.g. UAE examples of DXB and AUH, then it’s hard to gauge how big is their “true” market that involves actual UAE O&D.
3. metrics like these actually penalize nations that have made major strides with train transport options while simultaneously reward nations that have such poor land infrastructure that people fly even on the shortest of distances. A prime example would be CGH-SDU.