OAG has revealed its ranking of 2025’s Busiest Airline Routes, with the Melbourne-Sydney route in sixth place.

The leading data platform for the global travel industry reported the Melbourne-Sydney route recorded 8,951,497 scheduled seats in 2025.

Jeju to Seoul Gimpo was the busiest route in the world for 2025 with 14.4 million seats scheduled, a modest one per cent increase versus 2024. OAG said there is room yet for growth on this route, which is still 17 per cent short of regaining its capacity level of 2019. Seven carriers operate on this intensely competitive route.

The second and third placed routes are both in Japan: Sapporo New Chitose (CTS) – Tokyo Haneda (HND) and Fukuoka (FUK) – Tokyo Haneda (HND) with 12.1 million and 11.5 million seats respectively.

The top 10 is comprised entirely of domestic flights, and Asia Pacific dominates with nine out of 10 being in the region.

The one route outside of Asia Pacific is fifth placed Jeddah (JED) – Riyadh (RUH), which has seen the fastest growth of any top t10 route. 9.8 million seats on JED-RUH represent annual growth of 13 per cent. Fourth placed Hanoi (HAN) to Ho Chi Minh (SGN) also grew by four per cent year-on-year and 10th placed Shanghai (SHA) – Shenzhen (SZX) has seen capacity increase by five per cent to move into the top 10 from its eleventh spot last year.

Focusing on cross-border flights, Hong Kong (HKG) – Taipei (TPE) is the busiest route of 2025 with 6.8 million seats followed by Cairo (CAI) – Jeddah (JED) with 5.8 million seats and Kuala Lumpur (KUL) – Singapore Changi (SIN) with 5.6 million.

OAG Chief Analyst John Grant said: "The importance and scale of these routes cannot be underestimated and highlights the strength of emergent markets around the world.

"For Asia Pacific to be home to nine out of the 10 largest routes in the world, all of which are domestic, is a remarkable indication of how these routes have recovered in recent times and their significance to the airlines operating those sectors."