Melbourne to Sydney was the fifth busiest domestic flight path in the world this year, with 9.3 million seats on the route, according to global travel data provider OAG.

It also ranked fifth last year and before the pandemic in 2019, but airline capacity is down six per cent since then, the data shows.

Melbourne to Sydney ranked behind domestic flight paths in South Korea (Jeju International to Seoul Gimpo being the busiest domestic route), Japan (with Sapporo New Chitose to Tokyo Haneda in second place, and Fukuoka to Tokyo Haneda in third place), and Vietnam (with Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in fourth place).

The top flight path from Jeju, a popular holiday island, to Seoul, South Korea’s capital, had 13.7 million seats. It was also the busiest domestic route in 2019 and last year.

However, despite taking out the top spot again, capacity was down 21 per cent on 2019 and 12 per cent on last year – the only recorded capacity drop from 2022 to 2023 in the top 10.

Most of the top 10 domestic flight paths remained below their 2019 capacity, although four were in the green.

Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (fourth place) was up six per cent, Beijing to Shanghai Hongqiao (sixth place) was up three per cent, Tokyo Haneda to Okinawa Naha (seventh place) was up four per cent, and Jakarta to Bali (tenth place) was up eight per cent.

The flight path from Indonesia’s capital to Bali, one of Australians’ favourite overseas destinations, hadn’t made the top 10 in 2019 but ranked eighth place last year.

OAG defines the busiest air routes as those with the largest volume of scheduled airline seats in the year 2023, and data is for flights in both directions on each route.

Busiest international flight routes

Australia did not make an appearance on the top 10 busiest international flight routes.

The busiest international route in the world this year was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, to Singapore, with 4.9 million seats.

Cairo in Egypt to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia came in second place with 4.8 million seats.

There was only a two per cent capacity difference between first and second place on the international rankings compared to a big 15 per cent gap between first and second place on the domestic list.

Hong Kong to Taiwan’s capital Taipei was the busiest international route in 2019, but ranked third this year, with capacity having dropped by 43 per cent since then.

Seoul in South Korea to Osaka in Japan, and Seoul to Japan’s capital Tokyo rounded out the top five.

All top 10 international flight paths had increased capacity on last year between 24 per cent and a huge 356 per cent. Six out of 10 flight paths increased capacity on 2019 between 1 per cent and 42 per cent.

The busiest airport in the world this year remained Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in the US, according to OAG. It was followed by Dubai International Airport, Tokyo International (Haneda) Airport and London Heathrow Airport.