Aviation

Cairo-Jeddah is world’s second busiest international route

December 18, 2024, 4:38 PM

Passengers at Cairo International Airport. Its route to Jeddah is one of the busiest in the world

Two Saudi routes in top 10
Asia dominates busiest routes
Dubai International growing

The Cairo to Jeddah flight route is the second busiest international route in the world, behind only Hong Kong-Taipei, according to the annual report from aviation data provider OAG.

Using total airline capacity, OAG analysed the routes with the largest volume of scheduled seats this year, using round-trip flights rather than one-ways.

The two-hour and 15-minute flight between Cairo International Airport and King Abdulaziz International Airport increased seat capacity by 14 percent compared with last year to 5.4 million.

OAG said the Cairo to Jeddah route increased 68 percent compared with pre-pandemic flight data figures in 2019, when it was ranked the 14th busiest in the world.

“I think the reasoning is that this is a very historic and established market that continues to grow as more low-cost airline capacity is added to the route,” said John Grant, OAG chief analyst and AGBI columnist.

“With the whole Vision 2030, investment capacity between key capital cities is a major part of the growth we can expect as a combination of business and leisure travel builds.”

Saudi Arabia also features in the sixth-busiest international route in the world. The Dubai to Riyadh route increased in capacity by 8 percent compared with last year to 4.3 million seats.

The route now has 37 percent more seats than in 2019, when it was ranked 19th busiest in the world.

Dubai International airport reported record passenger traffic and visitor numbers for 2024, growing 5.4 percent compared with last year.

The world’s busiest international airport handled 327,700 flight movements, up 6.4 percent year on year.

Dubai to London Heathrow was the second busiest route with European involvement, behind New York JFK to Heathrow.

In the Middle East, seven of the top ten routes featured flights from Dubai.

Dubai International said it is expecting a busy holiday period this year, and more than 5.2 million passengers are set to use the airport between December 13 and December 31. The daily average is projected at 274,000 passengers and Friday December 20 is expected to be the busiest day of the period, with around 296,000 passengers.

The Hong Kong to Taipei route was named the world’s busiest international flight route with 6.7 million seats.

Asia dominated the top ten list, and seven of the world’s 10 busiest international airline routes were within the wider Asia-Pacific region.