Let’s play a little guessing game. How many air services would you say were operated between Sydney and Melbourne in 2017? 20,000? 35,000? Definitely less than 40,000?
Try 54,519! It was one of the world’s most congested domestic airline routes in 2017.
According to latest figures from flight data website, OAG.com, Melburnians and Sydneysiders may enjoy debating over which city is better, but in actual fact, they love spending time in both.
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The report showed that the one-hour domestic route was the second most congested last year, flying only 11,000 less than South Korea’s Jeju- Seoul Gimpo and 7,057 more than India’s Mumbai-Delhi.
Australia’s Brisbane-Sydney service managed to sneak into the top 10 as the ninth busiest route with 33,765 flights operated in 2017, ahead of Brisbane-Melbourne, which had 25,709 services.
The routes were more congested than seemingly busy cities such as New York LaGuardia-Chicago O’Hare and New York JFK-Los Angeles.
Overall, OAG found that there were more domestic flights operated in 2017 compared to international, News.com.au reported, which was dominated by 30,000 flights between Hong Kong and Taipei, as well as 29,380 services between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
Other highly frequented international routes were Jakarta-Singapore (26,872), Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur (20,890) and Dublin-London (14,556).
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