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"ROUTES" one year on: OAG reveals the top new route successes

Sunday 17 September 2006

  • Charlotte – Hilton Head Island Is World’s Busiest New Route
  • North America Takes the Top Five Spots in Global Rankings

To coincide with “Routes”, the World Route Development Forum in Dubai, OAG - the global travel and transport information company which collates data from more than 1000 scheduled airlines on a daily basis – has conducted an historical analysis of its data to identify the busiest new routes in September 2006.

Compared with this time last year, 2133 new routes have been launched or reinstated with a total of more than 18,000 new flight services now operating on these new routes every week. That represents 3% of total worldwide flight schedules for this month.

Topping the global chart of weekly frequencies is the route between Charlotte (CLT) and Hilton Head Island (HHH) in North America with 124 flights per week. These are turboprop services operated by US Airways.

Somewhat surprisingly, the joint second busiest new route in the world is exclusively for helicopters, on the new commuter route between New York’s JFK Airport and Downtown Manhattan Heliport with 120 flights every week.

Regional rankings put North America firmly ahead, with the top five busiest new routes and seven of the top ten.

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has 39 of the new or reinstated routes, followed by Dublin Airport with 27, London Stansted with 26 and Moscow Domodedovo with 25.

The majority of the 2000+ new routes are domestic. When we look at the international picture, the busiest routes are primarily intra-European. Leading this chart is the new route between Ostrava in the Czech Republic and Vienna in Austria, with 44 new flights per week operated by Job Air.

The two charts below show the top 10 busiest new routes overall and the top 20 busiest new international routes, ranked by schedule frequencies per week:

Commented Duncan Alexander, OAG’s Managing Director Business Development:
“Our statistics clearly demonstrate that airlines continue to expand their route networks. Compared to this time last year there are more than 18,000 new flight services operating on over 2,000 brand new routes. North America is leading the way with the top 5 busiest new routes, which is remarkable considering it already has the world’s busiest airspace.

Most of the top 20 busiest new international routes are intra-Europe, with the eagerly anticipated New York JFK to Stansted transatlantic route ranking seventh. In fact, every region is experiencing new route growth which bodes well for the health of the industry.”