These are some of the data points in a listing of the world’s top 20 airlines released by OAG, a leading aviation industry analyst firm. In a press statement, OAG says that it analysed the performance of the top 20 airlines on various parameters and found that in almost all segments and analyses, leading airlines of the United States topped their global rivals.

As a whole, the top 20 airlines operated 15.2 million flights around the world, offering 2.5 billion seats and with 4.7 trillion Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs), metric derived by multiplying the number of available seats on a flight by the distance flown in kilometres.

Which airline operated the most flights?

American Airlines scheduled most seats of all the airlines – 275.5 million, an increase of 6.5 pc compared to 2023. Unsurprisingly, this means they also had the most flights, with 2.2 million.

OAG says that following American Airlines were other US airlines namely Delta, Southwest and United that occupied the 2^nd-4^th places on the list of carriers with most capacity, while fifth place went to Dublin headquartered low-cost airline Ryanair, which increased capacity by 9 pc year-on-year to 209.6 million seats on 1.1 million flights.

Which airline flew the furthest in 2024?

OAG adds that the 20 major airlines worldwide, based on scheduled seats, counted a collective 4.7 trillion Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs). It says that United Airlines flew the furthest per seat, clocking up 507.1 billion total ASKs. This represents a 7 pc increase on 2023. American Airlines, with 4.8 billion ASKs, and Delta with 4.7 billion ASKs, are second and third on the list of top airlines for ASKs, while the first non-US domiciled carrier, Emirates, comes in fourth with 3.6 billion.

Which airline operated the most routes?

Among the top 20 airlines for capacity, Ryanair operated the most different routes in 2024, with 5,442 routes in its schedule, mostly within Europe. In comparison, United Airlines had the second highest number of routes at 2,653, less than half the number of Ryanair.

Which airline has largest fleet?

In terms of the fleet sizes of the global carriers, OAG says that despite the delayed deliveries of new aircraft, both by Airbus and Boeing, two airlines of the US tied for the top spot with largest fleets. These are Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, as both the carriers possessed 1,006 airplanes each, while Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo led in terms of orders for new aircraft, which for IndiGo stands at 951 aircraft.

Which airlines dont fly any domestic routes?

Of the 20 major airlines, two offer no domestic capacity, Emirates and Qatar Airways. On the other end of the scale, the US and Chinese airlines all offer more domestic capacity than international, and Southwest, a low-cost airline of the US, is the carrier with the highest percentage of domestic capacity, as 97.1 pc of its flights are within the US.

Which airlines fly to all regions of the world?

Less than 50 pc of the world’s major airlines fly to every region of the world. OAG says that when it split the top 20 airlines’ capacity out into IATA-defined regions, namely Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Middle East and Southwest Pacific, it found that nine carriers have some flights going to each. These include Qatar Airways, Air Canada, British Airways, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, Air China, China Southern, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.