China is the Second Largest Domestic Air Market

 

The United States is the largest domestic (within the country’s borders) commercial airline market in the world. And now China has become the second largest domestic market, with more than 30 million seats available each month:This is an increase of over 7% from last year.  China’s domestic capacity (seats on commercial aircraft) has tripled since 2002. It now represents 9% of the total air travel in the world.

 

In third place is Brazil, with more than 11 million domestic airline seats.

 

This past May, there were an additional 18 million airline seats available worldwide, compared to May 2010. This growth is more than the 5% monthly capacity increase predicted.  The number of scheduled flights has increased by 106,438 over last year, same month.

 

Where is this growth occurring? Worldwide, to be sure, but some areas have stronger growth in aviation. Within the Asia Pacific region, there has been an increase of 7 million seats from May 2010 to May 2011.  Six of the top ten airport capacity growth has been in this region — Delhi, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, with four million additional seats.  Delhi has a 28% increase in seats and 20% growth in flights as compared to last year.

 

In international available seats, the Middle East has been the fastest growing region with a nearly 12% growth in capacity in the past year, May-to-May.