In Brief: IATA has published its 2025 World Air Transport Statistics, offering hospitality stakeholders updated insights into passenger volumes, route trends, and international travel flows essential for strategic planning and market analysis.
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– Image Credit IATA
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released the latest edition of the World Air Transport Statistics (WATS), providing comprehensive statistical data through to 2025.
Updated annually, WATS provides data related to demand, supply, and operational performance. WATS also includes data collections on the global airline fleet, top routes, employment, and financial performance (costs and revenues).
WATS incorporates data from the 1,315 airlines in the IATA Annual Statistics collection, including more than 250 international airlines providing specific data contributions to WATS.
Insights from WATS
Premium-Class Travel Shows Strong Growth
In 2025, the number of international premium-class passengers—business and first class—reached 109.7 million, up 4.5% year-on-year. This accounted for 5.5% of all international travelers.
Latin America saw the largest jump in premium-class passengers, rising 22.1% to 4.0 million. Europe remained the biggest market for premium travel, with 39.7 million passengers in 2025. However, North America (10.4%) and the Middle East (9.5%) accounted for the highest shares of premium-class passengers as a proportion of total passenger numbers.
Asia Dominates Busiest Airport Pairs
Asia Pacific dominated the ranking of the world’s busiest airport pairs, with Jeju International Airport-Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport (CJU-GMP) remaining the most popular route globally, with 13.3 million passengers traveling between the two airports. In the top 10, only one airport pair—Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport-Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport (JED-RUH)—was outside the Asia Pacific region. All of the top 10 busiest airport pairs were domestic connections.
An overview of the regions showed:
- Cape Town International Airport-Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport (CPT-JNB) was Africa’s busiest airport pair in 2025, with 3.4 million passengers.
- Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport-Medellín’s José María Córdova International Airport (BOG-MDE) was the busiest airport pair in Latin America with 3.5 million passengers.
- Barcelona’s Josep Tarradellas-El Prat Airport-Palma de Mallorca (BCN-PMI) remained the busiest airport pair in Europe with 2.1 million passengers. Stockholm Arlanda Airport-Malmö Airport (ARN-MMX) was the airport pair with the fastest growth in Europe, with passenger numbers surging 85% to 271,031.
- New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport-Los Angeles International Airport (JFK-LAX) was the busiest domestic airport pair in North America with 2.2 million passengers, and JFK-London Heathrow (JFK-LHR) was the busiest international airport pair from North America with 2.1 million passengers.
Top Passenger Markets by Country
The United States remained the world’s biggest passenger market, with 890.1 million passengers (both arriving and departing) recorded in 2025. However, it recorded the slowest growth of the world’s top 10 markets, up just 1.6% year-on-year compared to 2024. China was the second-biggest passenger market, with 776.1 million passengers in 2025, a growth of 4.8% compared to 2024.
Several Central Asian countries were among the world’s fastest-growing passenger markets. Kazakhstan recorded a 40.0% year-on-year surge in 2025 to 18.1 million passengers while Uzbekistan welcomed 12.5 million passengers, up 16.9% on the previous year. Outside of Central Asia, Vietnam also recorded strong growth, with 80.9 million passengers in 2025, up 14.8% year-on-year.
Biggest Passenger Markets by Country in 2025 Country Passenger Numbers Change % YoY
| United States | 890.1m | +1.6% |
| China (People’s Republic of) | 776.1m | +4.8% |
| United Kingdom | 269.7m | +3.4% |
| Spain | 252.7m | +5.0% |
| Japan | 223.5m | +9.2% |
| India | 218.2m | +3.3% |
| Italy | 187.3m | +5.8% |
| Germany | 163.8m | +3.4% |
| France | 152.6m | +2.2% |
| Türkiye | 129.3m | +2.9% |
*Figures include scheduled passengers originating or terminating in each country. Domestic journeys are counted once; international journeys are counted in both the origin and destination countries.
Most Used Aircraft Types
Over the past six years, newer, more efficient widebody aircraft have taken to the skies. The Boeing 787 (+40.8%) and Airbus A350 (+117.4%) recorded significantly more flights in 2025 than in 2019. By contrast, the Airbus A380 showed a considerable decline in usage, operating 24.4% fewer flights in 2025 than in 2019.
Narrowbody aircraft from Boeing and Airbus maintained their position as the most used aircraft in 2025. Boeing 737 aircraft (including all variants) operated 10.8 million flights in 2025, up 12.0% from 2024. This was followed by the Airbus A320 with 8.7 million flights and the Airbus A321 with 4.2 million flights.
The Changing Face of the Global Fleet Aircraft type / Model Number of Flights 2025 Number of Flights 2019 Change 2019-2025
| Narrow Body / Boeing 737 | 10.8m | 10.5m | +3.1% |
| Narrow Body / Airbus A320 | 8.7m | 8.1m | +7.6% |
| Narrow Body / Airbus A321 | 4.2m | 2.6m | +61.6% |
| Narrow Body / Embraer ERJ170/190 | 2.7m | 2.6m | +2.8% |
| Narrow Body / Airbus A319 | 1.4m | 2.1m | -34.3% |
| Wide Body / Boeing 787 | 795k | 564k | +40.8% |
| Narrow Body / Airbus A220 | 530k | 61k | +770.4% |
| Wide Body / Airbus A350 | 434k | 200k | +117.4% |
| Wide Body / Airbus A380 | 90k | 119k | -24.4% |
Learn more about the WATS report
