@@boyfunkboy and sadly it was because Mahathir and the previous administration wanted to paint a bad picture to Najib (also because Mahathir dont really like Singapore). They also managed to brainwashed most urban Malaysian to not support the HSR, citing it is a waste of money.
Back in 2019 before COVID: 1. Hong Kong - Taipei (7,965,538 seats) 2. Kuala Lumpur - Singapore (5,560,894 seats) 3. Jakarta - Singapore (5,480,000 seats) 4. Bangkok - Hong Kong (4,826,872 seats) 5. Hong Kong - Shanghai (4,463,658 seats) 6. Hong Kong - Seoul (3,942,875 seats) 7. Hong Kong - Manila (3,852,991 seats) 8. London LHR - New York JFK (3,833,701 seats) 9. Bangkok - Singapore (3,832,494 seats) 10. Kuala Lumpur - Jakarta (3,798,559 seats) In other words, the busiest international route of 2022 with 3,234,683 seats cannot even get into the top 10 of 2019. And the 2,443,176 seats for KUL-SIN in 2022 is not even half of the 2019 figures as is the case for most of the East Asian markets, while the LHR-JFK route has recovered more, as is true for the European and North American markets. It now largely depends on how fast China reopens its borders, because China alone has a multiplier effect across the entire Asia-Pacific, and not just those routes into China / Hong Kong.
I flew Singapore - Kuala Lumpur last December, with Singapore Airlines. The plane wasn’t even half full. I think it would be interesting to also analyze the occupancy of all these available seats.
HKG-TPE used to be top 3, if not the top, but the pandemic induced travel restriction on airport and airliner capacity has put a huge damp to that number that has yet to recover
I flew Jeddah-Cairo in September, it was a full plane A330, and there were another 3 flights spaced like 60-90 minutes apart all going to the Cairo too !
Would be interesting to do city pairings next. NYC (incl EWR) and London (incl Gatwick) would probably rank top or close to top. Tokyo has two huge airports as well.
If they did that...London - Dubai wouls crush the list...from London's oficial 6 airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City and Southend) Emirates runs services from the 3 biggest...
I flew from DXB to RUH. I was so surprised to see the plane of choice was a 777-300 when I bought the ticket! Then I saw the amount of people taking that plane… Close to 98% full! 😄
what is the combined between 3 "NY" airports and LAX? I am pretty sure if they combined the three to LA it would rank maybe at least #5 also would be an interesting series if you did each country individually...
New York to LAX is not international. But I think about 5 London airports have flights to NY, so it would be interesting to see the total numbers between New York and London.
How seasonal are the Saudi routes? Those both look to be Haji driven as they go from big international hubs to Saudi airports which generally have low connectivity.
That may be partially true, atleast in Jeddah's case. Haj pilgrims usually take two air routes, one where they land at the Hajj terminal in Jeddah and the other where they land in Medina and take a trip back to Mecca. The travel itself is organized as a deal between the governments of Saudi Arabia and the Haji's country and most of the pilgrims travel in the national carriers of both countries directly to Jeddah. The Riyadh-Dubai route become a prominent business travel route owing to new Saudi regulations which required several multinational firms to set up new offices in Saudi Arabia in addition to the regional HQ that's usually based in Dubai. The Cairo-Jeddah route would include the Hajj pilgrimage and also the personal travel of several hundred thousand Egyptians currently working in Saudi Arabia.
DXB-RUH is nearly 100% driven by management consultants doing the weekly commute between their base office (Dubai) and the client location (Riyadh). At least for Sunday-Wednesday / Monday-Thursday cycle. Nothing seasonal about it, those flights are fully booked all year round.
2. I flew London Heathrow - Dubai International this October, and I flew Kuala Lumpur - Singapore Changi literally 5 Days ago. I flew London Heathrow - Newark in February of this year, Newark not JFK, so not quite. :D
If you consider city pairs, then definitely Dublin-London would feature in Top 3! Dublin has flights to all 5 London airports! And would be served by just 3 airlines - AerLingus, BA,Ryanair
Honesty, this video makes it clear just how many routes that we regularly fly could be better served by HSR. I'm a huge avgeek, but for the majority of short-medium haul flights, trains would be better for doing the job, and way better environmentally.
DXB-RUH on Sunday + Monday morning and return on Wednesday + Thursday evening are nearly 100% populated by management consultants. It's just a sea of navy blue suits as far as the eye can see. Source: I'm one of them 😅
Right? If Heathrow-Newark and Gatwick-JFK were added to the London to make full New York-London numbers it could have gone up a few places (the London City-JFK flights have been discontinued)
Can you please check if Seoul Gimpo - Jeju is not in the top 5. There are literally flights every 5/10 minutes, all day every day between these two. Also I thought Sao Paulo CGH & Rio SDU would be in there. Again many flights an hour.
@@drt1605 I understand that some time ago it was the busiest domestic route in the world. In other countries High Speed Trains take most of the traffic for air routes under about 600 km, but SYD-MEL is much longer than that, so I think it will continue to be a very busy route, even if they do build a HST. Politicians always talk about it just before elections, but the distance is much too far for a HST to make economic sense.
I’m just surprised no flight between the USA and Latin America were on here and yes I have flown one of them as the one which is from jfk my home airport to LHH
DXB-RUH and return are almost always 100% full. There's an UNFATHOMABLE number of people living in Dubai who serve clients in Riyadh doing the weekly commute. Management consultants are the easiest example.
This ranking is measured by the number of seats available NOT the number of flights. If it went by the number of flights then this list would have been different.
Why would the number of flights be more accurate, when that can be influenced significantly by the size of individual aircraft. Smaller routes operated by plenty of small planes end up outranking major air routes operated by huge wide-bodies.
