The route between Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) and Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA) was the busiest airport pair connection in Africa last year. This is one of the many facts contained in the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA’s) newly released 'World Air Transport Statistics 2025' report. (IATA is the global representative body for the airline industry.) The number of people who flew between CTIA and ORTIA last year came to 3.4-million.
For comparison, in 2025 the busiest airport pair in Latin America was in Colombia, between Bogotá (El Dorado International Airport) and Medellín (José María Córdova International Airport), which saw 3.5-million passengers. The busiest domestic airport pair in North America was New York (John F Kennedy International Airport) to Los Angeles International (2.2-million passengers) while the busiest airport pair in Europe was in Spain, between Barcelona (Josep Tarradellas-El Prat Airport) and Palma de Mallorca Airport (2.1-million passengers).
But the ten top airport pairs were all in Asia. Jeju-Seoul Gimpo in South Korea led, with 13.3-million passengers. Next were Sapporo-Tokyo Haneda in Japan (9.6-million), Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda, also in Japan (9.5-million), Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam (8.9-million) and Jeddah-Riyadh in Saudi Arabia (7-million). Then came Melbourne Tullamarine-Sydney, in Australia (also 7-million), Shanghai Hongqiao-Shenzhen in China (6.2-million), Tokyo Haneda-Okinawa, again in Japan (5.7-million), Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji-Delhi in India (5.5-million) and Beijing Capital-Shanghai Hongqiao, in China (also 5.5-million).
