The world's top ten routes are in Asia Pacific

Though the US has the most airports in the global top 30, no American airport appears in the busiest routes list until position 18; Los Angeles-San Francisco. And then US airports again disappear until route pair number 27.

But for the singular mention of Heathrow in position 32, there is not a European on the page until number 50, Madrid-Barcelona.

Finally, of the top 50, 41 are domestic and of the remaining nine, only New York-London (position 32) qualifies as a bona fide long-haul service. And the other eight are generally rather short hops that connect nearby neighbours such as Singapore-Jakarta, Singapore-Kuala Lumpur and Singapore-Bangkok.

The outstanding winner of dense, short-haul, international coverage goes to Doha-Dubai, a distance of only 237 miles. It is highly unlikely that 1 million Qataris and 1.8 million residents of Dubai are demanding that kind of schedule intensity, so those flights are a part of the growing incumbent's (QR and EK) battle for connecting passengers.

Top 50 Routes (29-Aug-2011 to 04-Sep-2011, System traffic), ranked by Seats

Rank	Origin		Destination		Total Seats
1	HND	Tokyo Haneda	CTS	Sapporo Chitose	269,500
2	CJU	Jeju Airport	GMP	Seoul Gimpo	258,305
3	FUK	Fukuoka	HND	Tokyo Haneda	200,787
4	SYD	Sydney Kingsford Smith	MEL	Melbourne Tullamarine	172,629
5	HKG	Hong Kong	TPE	Taipei Taoyuan	146,014
6	HND	Tokyo Haneda	OKA	Okinawa Naha	144,158
7	PEK	Beijing Capital	SHA	Shanghai Hongqiao	142,520
8	DEL	Delhi Indira Gandhi	BOM	Mumbai	140,956
9	ITM	Osaka Itami	HND	Tokyo Haneda	123,780
10	SIN	Singapore Changi	CGK	Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta	112,640
11	JNB	Johannesburg Oliver R Tambo	CPT	Cape Town	104,288
12	CGK	Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta	DPS	Denpasar Bali Ngurah Rai	100,739
13	SYD	Sydney Kingsford Smith	BNE	Brisbane	96,648
14	SGN	Ho Chi Minh City Tan Son Nhat	HAN	Hanoi Noibai	90,890
15	HKG	Hong Kong	SIN	Singapore Changi	87,275
16	HKG	Hong Kong	PVG	Shanghai PuDong	86,616
17	SIN	Singapore Changi	KUL	Kuala Lumpur	86,140
18	LAX	Los Angeles	SFO	San Francisco	84,263
19	CGK	Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta	SUB	Surabaya Juanda	83,738
20	HKG	Hong Kong	BKK	Bangkok Suvarnabhumi	79,923
21	CGK	Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta	MES	Medan Polonia	78,758
22	CTU	Chengdu	PEK	Beijing Capital	75,383
23	PEK	Beijing Capital	CAN	Guangzhou Baiyun	74,953
24	BKK	Bangkok Suvarnabhumi	HKT	Phuket	74,836
25	CAI	Cairo International	JED	Jeddah King Abdulaziz	74,414
26	JNB	Johannesburg Oliver R Tambo	DUR	Durban King Shaka	74,380
27	JFK	New York John F Kennedy	LAX	Los Angeles	73,970
28	PEK	Beijing Capital International	SZX	Shenzhen	73,816
29	SDU	Rio De Janeiro Santos Dumont	CGH	Sao Paulo Congonhas	71,656
30	JED	Jeddah King Abdulaziz	RUH	Riyadh King Khaled	71,529
31	SZX	Shenzhen	SHA	Shanghai Hongqiao	70,556
32	JFK	New York John F Kennedy	LHR	London Heathrow	70,306
33	SIN	Singapore Changi	BKK	Bangkok Suvarnabhumi	69,790
34	MNL	Manila Ninoy Aquino	CEB	Cebu Mactan	69,670
35	ORD	Chicago O'Hare	LGA	New York La Guardia	68,852
36	BNE	Brisbane	MEL	Melbourne	68,804
37	KOJ	Kagoshima	HND	Tokyo Haneda	68,787
38	DEL	Delhi Indira Gandhi	BLR	Bengaluru	68,700
39	CAN	Guangzhou Baiyun	SHA	Shanghai Hongqiao	67,976
40	DXB	Dubai International	DOH	Doha	67,588
41	PUS	Busan Gimhae	GMP	Seoul Gimpo	67,255
42	HKG	Hong Kong	PEK	Beijing Capital	66,718
43	CGK	Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta	JOG	Yogyakarta Adisutjipto	66,626
44	IST	Istanbul Ataturk	ADB	Izmir Adnan Menderes	66,576
45	BKI	Kota Kinabalu	KUL	Kuala Lumpur	66,426
46	MTY	Monterrey Gen Mariano Escobedo	MEX	Mexico City Juarez	65,705
47	YVR	Vancouver	YYZ	Toronto Pearson	63,887
48	KUL	Kuala Lumpur	KCH	Kuching	63,845
49	CGK	Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta	UPG	Ujung Pandang Hasanudin	63,547
50	MAD	Madrid Barajas	BCN	Barcelona El Prat	63,305

Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation & Innovata - CAPA Route Rankings Tool

Interesting rankings by counhtry

If the domestic routes (numbers indicate chart ranking) are broken down by country, there are some additional surprises as, once again, the long dominant North American and European markets are a tiny fraction of the whole. The US, Canada and Mexico together take five positions and the EU has but one.

Domestic top routes by nation

China	7, 15, 22, 23, 28, 31, 39, 42
Japan	1, 3, 6, 9, 37
Indonesia	12, 19, 21, 43, 49
Australia	4, 13, 36
USA	18, 27, 35
Korea	2, 41
India	8, 38
South Africa	11, 26
Malaysia	45, 48
Vietnam	14
Thailand	24
Brazil	29
Saudi Arabia	30
Philippines	34
Turkey	44
Mexico	46
Canada	47
EU	50

Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation & Innovata - CAPA Route Rankings Tool

Route growth in Asia boosts the entire region

But even more striking is the industry growth that has been generated between many domestic city pairs in a relatively short time. The following table displays the number of weekly non-stop between various cities in 1995 and 2011.

The combination of less regulation, more competition and increased affluence have all combined to create some stunning percentage increases is less than two decades.

Weekly Frequencies			% change
	1995	2011
Jakarta-Bali	123	241	196%
Manila-Cebu	61	187	307%
Mumbai-Delhi	124	475	383%
Shenzhen-Beijing	30	168	560%
Shenzhen-Shanghai	25	266	1064%
Johannesburg-Cape Town	148	411	278%

Source: OAG

Often with good reason

And, of course, there are additional reasons for so many of the most heavily traveled routes to be outside the US and EU.

• Both the US and Europe have extraordinarily dense air coverage which diffuses large regional numbers across many routes.
• Many of the countries represented, especially those in development, have few options to air travel. Manila-Cebu and Jakarta-Bali have only long sea journeys as alternatives. The drive from Rio to Sao Paulo can take 6-7 hours as opposed to roughly an hour by air, while the larger, albeit ageing, US infrastructure provides much quicker ground travel between New York and Washington-roughly the same distance as the Brazilian cities.
• In some cases air journeys are competitively priced. The airfare between Seoul and Busan is USD65 and takes one hour. The high-speed rail trip takes 3 hours and costs USD52. And the cheapest travel, by bus, is described on-line as being complex and taking "forever".

New pattern is likely permanent, less US and EU…

There will be no going back. The US carriers continue to cut capacity and substitute RJs for mainline equipment. It is also a mature market with future expansion unlikely to outpace population growth.

The same is true in Europe, where Ryanair, as the growth pacesetter, flies primarily to secondary airports, increasing traffic but not between traditional city pairs. And the European rail system offers far more options than can be found between US cities.

In the same time period (1995-2011) and due to schedule coordination by Air France/KLM, weekly frequencies between Amsterdam and Paris have dropped from 111 to 83-or 25%.

Aviation in China will continue to grow but the pace may be moderated by the push towards developing high-speed rail as well, and India's comprehensive but ageing rail system will continue to provide an alternative to air travel.

See related article: China's aviation industry to suffer billions in losses from high-speed rail

But for island nations like the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, there will be few other options for an increasingly mobile population, and it will be a long time until roads replace aircraft in Brazil.

Against almost every measure, the balance of traffic is shifting from long-established Western nations to the developing world-with no end in sight.