Dublin to London becomes second busiest international air route

Last year saw 3.6 millions air passengers travelling between Dublin and London, making this the second busiest international air route after Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei. According to the International Air Transport Association this popular short route has seen an increase of 7 percent from 2012 while the 4.9 million travelling from Hong King is down 11.5 percent. 3.4 million passengers chose to travel from Jakarta to Singapore making this the third most popular route.

However the United States domestic and international market means it remains the single largest air market. Airlines overall have seen an increase of 5.1 percent from the previous year as they were responsible for transporting 3.13 billion passengers throughout 2013. The largest amount of passengers travelled in the Asia-Pacific region, 1.01 billion with Europe not far behind with 826 million passengers. The top five airlines are Delta, Southwest, United Airlines and American Airlines.

Passengers wanting to avoid Heathrow and other congested European airports, has meant that Dublin airport is taking in more business from Scotland and North of England. Aer Lingus says the transfer passengers from here and other areas of Europe now makes up a third of it\’s route to North America. Dublin airport has beaten off competition from bigger airports such as Brussels, Gatwick and Istanbul as well to be ranked 7^th as a hub for European Transatlantic passengers.

The IATA also ranked global cargo freight in its findings. It discovered only a slight growth of 1.8 percent from 2012 in freight tonne kilometres. However 2011 saw a decrease of 1.1 percent so this is in fact a reversal of this figure. The top five freight airlines are Federal Express carrying 7.1 million freight tonnes, UPS Airlines (4.1 million), Emirates (2.1 million), Korean Air (1.4 million) and Cathay Pacific Airways responsible for 1.3 million freight tonnes.

The price of jet fuel saw a decrease in 2013 by 3.9 percent since 2012, with total estimated cost coming to $210 billion or 31 percent of the operating cost of the airline. 2013 largest airline alliance is Star Alliance which has retained it\’s position from previous years. It\’s in charge of 26.6 percent of schedule traffic and is followed by SkyTeam with 20.1 percent and oneworld with 15.4 percent.