List of busiest passenger flight routes

These are lists of the busiest flight routes by the number of passengers flown, by seat capacity and by aircraft movements.

By aircraft movements
The following are the lists of the world's busiest flight routes based on the number of scheduled flights in both directions. Note that these statistics do not consider the number of passengers carried.

International
The only international route to make the Top 50 busiest routes in 2021 was between 🇫🇷 Saint Barthélemy (SBH) and 🇳🇱 Sint Maarten (SXM).

Europe (2011–2022)
Busiest flight routes inside the EU, UK, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway*

* Figures are only available for EU countries, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway.
 * The UK has not reported for 2021 and parts of 2020, due to Brexit, but data is available from EU/Eurostat countries for flights to/from the UK, but not for UK domestic or UK intercontinental flights. The multiple airports of London lower the airport-to-airport figures; the busiest UK domestic route was in 2019 Heathrow – Edinburgh with 1,196,921.
 * Among other European (non-EU, not Switzerland, Iceland and Norway) countries, based on airport statistics, no other country than Russia, Ukraine and Turkey has domestic routes with more than 1 million passengers.
 * The St. Petersburg Pulkovo Airport – Moscow (three airports) route was used by 2,965,331 passengers in 2013.

** Madrid – Barcelona had 4,627,000 passengers in 2007, meaning a reduction by 34% in 2010, partly because of a new high-speed railway. The decline has continued from 560 weekly flights in 2010 to 380 in 2012.

Busiest flight routes between an airport in Europe (EU, UK, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway) and outside Europe
For routes from the EU, UK, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway to other countries inside Europe except to Turkey, the busiest was in 2019 Paris/CDG – Moscow/Sheremetyevo with 830,980.

Busiest flight routes in or from Europe by city pairs
 * London includes City, Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Stansted and Southend airports
 * New York includes Kennedy and Newark airports
 * Paris includes Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Orly airports
 * Barcelona includes El Prat and Girona airports
 * Berlin includes Schönefeld (from 2020 Brandenburg) and Tegel airports
 * Moscow includes Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports
 * Turkey is not included even if Istanbul – Izmir has (as of 2019) more passengers than London – Dublin, because all its domestic routes are mostly or entirely inside Asia

Brazil (2022)
Busiest domestic flight routes in Brazil:

Argentina (2017)
Busiest international flight routes in Argentina:

Busiest domestic flight routes in Argentina:

Australia (2019)
Busiest domestic flight routes in Australia (all passengers including connecting):

Busiest international flight routes in Australia (all passengers including connecting):

Colombia (2017)
Busiest domestic flight routes in Colombia:

Busiest international flight routes in Colombia:

India (2019–2021)
Busiest domestic flight routes from/to Indian cities:

Busiest international flight routes from/to Indian cities:

Mexico (2018–2023)
Busiest domestic flight routes in Mexico (passengers):

Busiest international flight routes from/to Mexico (passengers):

Turkey (2019)
Busiest domestic and international flight routes:

In 2019, the Atatürk – Izmir route had 728,279 passengers as the old Istanbul airport in Atatürk was also serving the traffic during this year. The new Istanbul airport in Havalimani opened on 6 April 2019.

United States (September 2014 – August 2015)
Busiest flight routes by city pairs within the United States:

The statistics below are based on metro areas, not individual airports.