The global aviation sector is showing strong vitality as worldwide airline capacity is set to reach 529 million seats this month, a surge of 20 million seats compared to October 2024, according to the latest data from leading travel data and analytics provider, OAG. This represents a year-on-year growth rate of 3.9%, significantly higher than the 2.4% growth recorded last month.
Among the world’s top 20 airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are spearheading the increase in flight frequency:
United Airlines leads the industry by adding the most extra frequency, with 7,000 more frequencies compared to October 2024.
Delta Air Lines closely follows, adding 6,800 more frequencies.
Turkish Airlines stands out with the fastest growth this month, recording a 14.9% increase and adding 4,900 flights, totaling 37,600 flights for the month.
Conversely, some carriers are scaling back, with Lufthansa seeing a 5.0% decline and Azul showing the largest rate of decline at 10.0%.
Domestic and Regional Market Dynamics
The USA remains the world’s largest domestic market, offering 92.1 million seats this month, 19.5 million more than China’s 72.5 million seats. However, China recorded the biggest growth among the Top 10 domestic markets, adding 2.7 million more seats than last October.
Other markets experiencing significant domestic growth include:
Brazil, with seats increasing by 6.5%.
Canada, seeing a 5.1% rise.
Capacity is declining in some regions, with Indonesia’s domestic market down 6.3% and Japan also experiencing a reduction.
Regionally, Southern Africa is forecast to record the strongest year-on-year growth amongst the IATA regions, up 12.5%.
In terms of sheer volume, North East Asia and Western Europe are driving the global seat increase, both seeing a substantial increase of 4.6 million seats compared to last October.
Capacity is down in two regions compared to October 2024: the Caribbean (−0.4%) and the Upper South America region, which shows the most significant decline (−1.4%).
