World's largest airlines

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The world's largest airlines can be defined in several ways. American Airlines Group is the largest by its fleet size, revenue, profit, passengers carried and revenue passenger mile. Delta Air Lines is the largest by assets value and market capitalization. Lufthansa Group is the largest by number of employees, FedEx Express by freight tonne-kilometers, Turkish Airlines by number of countries served and UPS Airlines by number of destinations served (or United Airlines when excluding freight-only carriers).

By airline companies revenue[edit]

American Airlines is the largest by fleet size, revenue, profit, passengers carried and RPK
Lufthansa is the largest by number of employees
Forbes' World's Biggest Public Companies[1]
Rank Airline Country Revenue
(US$B)		 Profit
(US$B)		 Assets
(US$B)		 Market
cap.
(US$B)		 Employees
1 American Airlines Group[2]  United States 43.0 7.6 48.4 22.1 122,300
2 Delta Air Lines  United States 42.1 4.7 53.3 34.4 86,564
3 United Continental Holdings  United States 41.5 7.1 40.9 17.1 88,000
4 Lufthansa  Germany 38.3 1.9 36.3 7.3 129,424
5 Air France-KLM  France/ Netherlands 29.1 0.131 25.3 2.7 96,417
6 International Airlines Group  Spain/ United Kingdom 26.0 1.7 30.7 15.4 63,422
* Emirates  United Arab Emirates 24.2 1.24 30.34 - 56,725
7 Southwest Airlines  United States 21.2 2.2 22.2 30.2 58,000
8 China Southern Airlines  China 19.7 0.620 28.7 8.4 87,202
9 All Nippon Airways  Japan 17.8 0.730 30.1 10.9 71,033
10 China Eastern Airlines  China 15.7 0.497 19.1 9.9 33,719

* Note that Emirates is a government-owned company and is thus not ranked in this list.

By passengers carried[edit]

Rank Airline Country 2016[3] 2015[4] 2014[5] 2013[6] 2012[7] 2011[8]
1 American Airlines  United States 198,700,000 146,530,000 87,830,000 86,823,000 86,335,000 86,042,000
2 Delta Air Lines  United States 183,700,000 138,842,000 129,433,000 120,636,000 116,726,000 113,731,000
3 Southwest Airlines  United States 151,800,000 144,575,000 129,087,000 115,323,000 112,234,000 110,587,000
4 United Airlines  United States 143,200,000 95,384,000 90,439,000 90,161,000 92,619,000 50,473,000
5 Ryanair  Ireland 119,800,000 101,401,000 86,370,000 81,395,000 79,649,000 76,422,000
6 China Southern Airlines  China 84,900,000 109,301,000 100,683,000 91,504,000 86,277,000 80,545,000
7 China Eastern Airlines  China 80,900,000 75,139,000 66,174,000 62,653,000 79,611,000
8 easyJet  United Kingdom 73,100,000 70,232,000 62,309,000 58,410,000
9 Turkish Airlines  Turkey 62,800,000 60,198,000
10 Lufthansa  Germany 62,400,000 59,850,000 63,273,000 64,393,000 63,012,000

The IATA reports numbers for individual air operator's certificates and groups of multiple airlines can report larger numbers.

By passengers carried (thousands).png

By scheduled passenger-kilometers flown (millions)[edit]

Airline holding groups

Rank Group Country 2016[3]
1 American Airlines Group  United States 359,574
2 Delta Air Lines  United States 342,860
3 United Continental Holdings  United States 338,388
4 The Emirates Group  United Arab Emirates 276,608
5 International Airlines Group  Spain/ United Kingdom 243,474
6 Air France-KLM  France/ Netherlands 238,183
7 Lufthansa Group  Germany 226,633
8 China Southern Airlines  China 206,092
9 Southwest Airlines  United States 200,964
10 Air China  China 188,137

Individual airlines

Rank Airline Country 2016[9] 2015[10] 2014[11] 2013[12] 2012[13] 2011[14]
1 American Airlines  United States 320,044 320,813 208,046 206,551 203,336 203,485
2 Delta Air Lines  United States 308,088 302,512 290,862 277,560 271,567 269,724
3 United Airlines  United States 299,080 294,970 287,547 286,802 288,282 160,270
4 Emirates  United Arab Emirates 270,797 251,190 230,855 209,377 180,880 153,264
5 Southwest Airlines  United States 200,848 189,097 162,445 145,124 137,708 134,918
6 China Southern Airlines  China 205,720 189,186 166,074 147,841 135,021 121,944
7 Lufthansa  Germany 149,702 145,904 143,403 144,236 142,512 140,972
8 British Airways  United Kingdom 144,028 140,780 137,204 130,129 124,318 116,864
9 Ryanair  Ireland 142,740 125,194
10 China Eastern Airlines  China 138,042

By scheduled freight ton-kilometers (millions)[edit]

FedEx Express is the largest by freight tonne-kilometers
Rank Airline Country 2017[citation needed] 2016[9] 2015[10] 2014[15] 2013[16] 2012[17] 2011[18]
1 FedEx Express  United States 16,851 15,712 15,799 16,020 16,127 16,108 15,939
2 Emirates SkyCargo  United Arab Emirates 12,715 12,270 12,157 11,240 10,459 9,319 8,132
3 UPS Airlines  United States 11,940 11,264 10,807 10,936 10,584 10,416 10,566
4 Cathay Pacific Cargo  Hong Kong 10,772 9,947 9,935 9,464 8,241 8,433 9,109
5 Qatar Airways Cargo  Qatar 10,999 9,221 7,660 5,997 4,972
6 Korean Air Cargo  South Korea 8,015 7,666 7,761 8,079 7,666 8,144 8,974
7 Lufthansa Cargo  Germany 7,317 7,384 6,888 7,054 7,218 7,175 7,674
8 Cargolux  Luxembourg 7,322 6,878 6,309 5,753 5,225
9 Singapore Airlines Cargo  Singapore 6,592 6,345 6,083 6,019 6,240 6,694 7,118
10 Air China Cargo  China 6,701 6,089 5,718

By fleet size[edit]

Delta Air Lines is the largest by assets value and market capitalization
Rank Airline Country Fleet (Dec. 2017)[19]
1 American Airlines  United States 950
2 Delta Air Lines  United States 850
3 United Airlines  United States 745
4 Southwest Airlines  United States 697
5 China Southern Airlines  China 545
6 China Eastern Airlines  China 486
7 Ryanair  Ireland 413
8 Air China  China 392
9 FedEx Express  United States 371
10 Turkish Airlines  Turkey 329

By number of countries served[edit]

Turkish Airlines is the largest airline by number of countries served.
Rank Airline Country Countries served
(S1 2019)[20]
1 Turkish Airlines  Turkey 121
2 Air France  France 91
3 British Airways  United Kingdom 82
4 Ethiopian Airlines  Ethiopia 81
5 Emirates  United Arab Emirates 78
6 Qatar Airways  Qatar 78
7 Lufthansa  Germany 75
8 KLM  Netherlands 67
9 American Airlines  United States 62
9 United Airlines  United States 62
10 Aeroflot  Russia 58

By number of routes[edit]

Rank Airline Country Routes served
(S1 2019)[20]
1 Ryanair  Ireland 1,831
2 American Airlines  United States 1,106
3 United Airlines  United States 950
4 easyJet  United Kingdom 945
5 Delta Air Lines  United States 939
6 Southwest Airlines  United States 754
7 China Southern  China 667
7 China Eastern  China 648
8 Wizz Air  Hungary 615
9 Air China  China 470
9 TUI Airways  United Kingdom 470

By number of destinations[edit]

UPS Airlines serves the most destinations
Largest airlines by number of destinations served[19]
Rank Airline Country Destinations
(Dec. 2017)
1 UPS Airlines  United States 720
2 FedEx Express  United States 375
3 United Airlines  United States 373
4 American Airlines  United States 350
5 Delta Air Lines  United States 320
6 Turkish Airlines  Turkey 302
7 Lufthansa  Germany 274
8 China Eastern Airlines  China 217
9 Air France  France 204
10 Air China  China 201

By brand value[edit]

Largest airlines by brand value[21]
Rank Airline Country $Bn
1 American Airlines  United States 9.094
2 Delta Air Lines  United States 8.712
3 United Airlines  United States 7.027
4 Emirates Airlines  United Arab Emirates 5.336
5 Southwest Airlines  United States 5.298
6 China Southern Airlines  China 4.063
7 China Eastern Airlines  China 3.81
8 British Airways  United Kingdom 3.484
9 Air China  China 3.433
10 Lufthansa  Germany 2.914

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Global 2000 Leading Companies". Forbes. May 2017.
  2. ^ "American Airlines group". World’s Biggest Public Companies. Forbes.
  3. ^ a b "World Airline Rankings". Flight Global. 2017.
  4. ^ "Global Air Traffic & Top Airlines 2016 (IATA)". IMM International. 28 June 2016.
  5. ^ "Scheduled Passengers Carried". World Air Transport Statistics 59th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on June 18, 2015.
  6. ^ "Scheduled Passengers Carried". World Air Transport Statistics 58th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on January 2, 2015.
  7. ^ "Scheduled Passengers Carried". World Air Transport Statistics 57th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on November 13, 2013.
  8. ^ "Scheduled Passengers Carried". World Air Transport Statistics 56th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on December 17, 2012.
  9. ^ a b "Summary of passenger and freight traffic" (PDF). World Air Transport Statistics. IATA. 2017.
  10. ^ a b "Summary of passenger and freight traffic" (PDF). World Air Transport Statistics. IATA. 2016.
  11. ^ "Scheduled Passenger - Kilometres Flown". World Air Transport Statistics 59th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on July 6, 2015.
  12. ^ "Scheduled Passenger - Kilometres Flown". World Air Transport Statistics 58th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on November 11, 2014.
  13. ^ "Scheduled Passenger - Kilometres Flown". World Air Transport Statistics 57th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013.
  14. ^ "Scheduled Passenger - Kilometres Flown". World Air Transport Statistics 56th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on December 16, 2012.
  15. ^ "Scheduled Freight Tonne - Kilometres". World Air Transport Statistics 59th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on July 4, 2015.
  16. ^ "Scheduled Freight Tonne - Kilometres". World Air Transport Statistics 58th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on November 25, 2014.
  17. ^ "Scheduled Freight Tonne - Kilometres". World Air Transport Statistics 57th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013.
  18. ^ "Scheduled Freight Tonne - Kilometres". World Air Transport Statistics 56th Edition. IATA. Archived from the original on December 15, 2012.
  19. ^ a b "Top 10 World's Largest Airlines". AirportSpotting. 8 December 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  20. ^ a b "Ethiopian Airlines set to serve more country markets than MEB3 in S19, Ryanair still tops route table". Airline Network News and Analysis. 27 February 2019.
  21. ^ "American Airlines Tops The World's Most Valuable Airlines List in 2018". Airways International. April 26, 2018.
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