Largest Airlines

Most of our travels start and end with them…. Airlines and their planes! But who of them carries the most people?
Find out with our ranking of the Top 20 World’s largest Airlines by Passengers carried.

20. SkyWest Airlines (USA) – 35.8 million passengers carried

SkyWest Airlines is a North American regional airline headquartered in St. George, Utah. As a regional airline it primarily serves as and operates for other major air carriers via code sharing agreements that it has contracted with such as American (as American Eagle), Delta (as Delta Connection), Alaska (as Alaska SkyWest) and United (as United Express). 

19. Hainan Airlines (China) – 36.5 million passengers carried

Hainan Airlines is an airline headquartered in Haikou, Hainan, People’s Republic of China. It operates scheduled domestic and international services on 500 routes from Hainan and nine locations on the mainland, as well as charter services. Hainan Airlines is a Skytrax 5-star airlines.

18. JetBlue (USA) – 40.0 million passengers carried

JetBlue Airways Corporation, is an American low-cost airline headquartered in the Long Island City neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, with its main base at John F. Kennedy International Airport. It also maintains corporate offices in Cottonwood Heights, Utah and Orlando, Florida.

17. British Airways (United Kingdom) – 44.9 million passengers carried

British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier and the second largest airline in the United Kingdom based on fleet size and passengers carried, behind easyJet. The airline is based in Waterside near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. In January 2011 BA merged with Iberia, creating the International Airlines Group (IAG), a holding company registered in Madrid, Spain. 

16. Air France (France) – 46.0 million passengers carried

Air France is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance. As of 2013 Air France serves 36 destinations in France and operates worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to 168 destinations in 78 countries (93 including overseas departments and territories of France). The airline’s global hub is at Charles de Gaulle Airport with Orly Airport as the primary domestic hub. 

15. IndiGo (India) – 47.9 million passengers carried

IndiGo is a low-cost airline headquartered at Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 41.3% domestic market share as of June 2018. It is also the largest individual Asian low-cost carrier in terms of jet fleet size and passengers carried. The airline operates flights to 66 destinations, 51 domestic and 15 international. It has its primary hub at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi.

14. ANA (Japan) – 49.4 million passengers carried

All Nippon Airways, also known as ANA or Zennikku, is the largest airline in Japan on the basis of fleet size. Its headquarters are located at Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area of Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It operates services to both domestic and international destinations and had more than 20,000 employees as of March 2016.

13. Emirates (United Arab Emirates) – 58.1 million passengers carried

Emirates is an airline based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The airline is a subsidiary of The Emirates Group, which is wholly owned by the government of Dubai’s Investment Corporation of Dubai. It is the largest airline in the Middle East, operating over 3,600 flights per week from its hub at Dubai International Airport, to more than 150 cities in 80 countries across six continents. Cargo activities are undertaken by Emirates SkyCargo.

12. Lufthansa (Germany) – 60.5 million passengers carried

Deutsche Lufthansa, commonly known as Lufthansa, is the largest German airline and, when combined with its subsidiaries, also the largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from the German word Luft “air” and Hansa, the Hanseatic League. Lufthansa is one of the five founding members of Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance, formed in 1997.

11. Air China (China) – 66.0 million passengers carried

Air China Limited is the flag carrier and one of the major airlines of the People’s Republic of China, with its headquarters in Shunyi District, Beijing. Air China’s flight operations are based at Beijing Capital International Airport.