on the fly: What are the leading airline growth markets for Q3?
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Many of our recent “On the Fly” updates have compared the present with 2019. The idea of course has been to give a sense of how the world has changed since the onset and eventual waning of the global pandemic. However, it has now been more than one year since large parts of the world, if not yet Asia, began a robust recovery in air traffic. So, let’s have a look at the upcoming July-to-September quarter, and this time compare it to the same quarter of 2022.
The chart below presents the 100 busiest airports in the world, ranked by total seats scheduled for Q3. These airports are sorted by how much they’ve grown (or in a few cases contracted) in the past year.
What stands out is the Asian recovery, which only started late last year or in some cases early this year. The top 13 airports below are all in East Asia. Outside of East Asia, Bengaluru tops the growth list, thanks to lots of new capacity by Indian carriers like IndiGo, Air India, and the newcomer Akasa. Tel Aviv has seen a large increase in seats during the past year, partly thanks to low-cost carriers like Wizz Air and Turkey’s Pegasus. Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport gained seats thanks to slot expansion.
On the other hand, a few major airports will be less busy this Q3 than last. Mexico City is one example, as the low-cost carriers Volaris and VivaAerobus scale back and concentrate growth in other Mexican markets. Moscow’s main airport continues to suffer from Russia’s Ukraine conflict. Oslo (where Flyr collapsed) and New York LaGuardia (where American has shrank) are also down.
NEXT ON THE FLY: What are London’s busiest overseas markets?
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