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When it comes to deciding who is the world’s top passenger airline, there are any number of ways you can use.
Profitability would be one perfectly acceptable way, especially as it is something that remains elusive for most airlines. Another is the number of scheduled passenger kilometres flown, something that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) keeps track of in its annual review of the aviation industry, World Air Transport Statistics.
But perhaps the simplest way, and the one that may best reflect what the customers think of an airline, is to look at the number of scheduled passengers carried last year.
In this feature we do just that, using IATA’s World Air Transport Statistics as the source for the rankings.
Both domestic and international traffic are taken into account in our list, and the split between the two is highlighted in the writeups below.
When it comes to the actual number of people carried, the clear leader last year was Southwest Airlines.
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Southwest’s success reflects the sheer size of the domestic US market (where it does 100% of its business) and the success of the low cost, ‘no frills’ model it perfected. Another no frills carrier, Ryanair, is number sixth on this list and is actually the world’s number one airline on international routes.
It should be noted that although Emirates does not appear on the overall list here, it ranked number seventh in 2008 in terms of international traffic
Here is the list of the world’s top airlines by passengers carried in 2008:
1. Southwest Airlines
2. American Airlines
3. Delta Airlines
4. United Airlines
5. China Southern Airlines
6. Ryanair
7. US Airways
8. Lufthansa
9. Air France
10. Northwest Airlines
Please click on the numbers below for more on the world's top passenger airlines.
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FEATURED COMMENT
It's amazing how few of these airlines make money! What about doing world's most profitable airlines? Maybe Air Arabia w