Misc
Mapping the World’s Busiest Air Routes
Mapping the World’s Busiest Air Routes
Modern air travel gives us almost unlimited possibilities for getting around.
Whether you are acting on your wanderlust to explore new and exotic destinations, hopping to a familiar island for a well-deserved vacation, or jetsetting to London in the comfort of business class, the modern airline industry can get you almost anywhere you need to go.
But while flying allows us to have unique experiences, it’s often the case that we are all coming and going from many of the same popular destinations. As a result, the world’s busiest air routes have hundreds of flights per day connecting important city pairs together.
Ranking City Pairs
Today’s chart pulls data from OAG, which has compiled a detailed report ranking the busiest domestic and international air routes from around the globe.
It’s worth noting that the data is over the period of March 2018 to February 2019, and it excludes carriers that operate fewer than 500 routes per year.
Let’s dive in to see which city pairs have the most air travel between them.
Domestic Routes
Domestic routes are far more popular than international routes globally. According to the report, there are 15 domestic routes that have more operating flights per year than any international route anywhere.
Here’s a look at the top 10 domestic routes:
Rank | Country | City Pair | Flights (Annually) | Carriers |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | 🇰🇷 | Jeju ↔️ Seoul | 79,460 | 7 |
#2 | 🇦🇺 | Melbourne ↔️ Sydney | 54,102 | 4 |
#3 | 🇮🇳 | Mumbai ↔️ Delhi | 45,188 | 6 |
#4 | 🇧🇷 | São Paulo ↔️ Rio de Janeiro | 39,747 | 3 |
#5 | 🇯🇵 | Fukuoka ↔️ Toyko | 39,406 | 4 |
#6 | 🇻🇳 | Hanoi ↔️ Ho Chi Minh City | 39,291 | 3 |
#7 | 🇯🇵 | Hokkaido ↔️ Tokyo | 39,271 | 4 |
#8 | 🇮🇩 | Jakarta ↔️ Surabaya City | 37,762 | 6 |
#9 | 🇺🇸 | Los Angeles ↔️ San Francisco | 35,365 | 5 |
#10 | 🇸🇦 | Jeddah ↔️ Riyadh | 35,149 | 5 |
The busiest domestic route might be a surprise, unless you are familiar with Asian geography.
With almost 80,000 annual flights, the 300-mile hop between Seoul and Jeju Island in South Korea is the busiest air route in the world by a large margin. Overall, there are seven carriers competing on it each day, with over 200 daily flights available between them.
What makes Jeju so popular?
Known as the “Hawaii of South Korea”, this volcanic island is an extremely popular vacation destination within the country, and it hosts roughly 15 million guests per year.
International Routes
On an international basis, the busiest route has almost 50,000 fewer flights per year than the Jeju-Seoul city pair listed above. Not surprisingly, this route – and many other top international routes – are also located in the Asia Pacific region.
Rank | Countries | City Pair | Flights (Annually) | Carriers |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | 🇲🇾🇸🇬 | Kuala Lumpur ↔️ Singapore | 30,187 | 8 |
#2 | 🇭🇰🇹🇼 | Hong Kong ↔️ Taipei | 28,447 | 5 |
#3 | 🇮🇩🇸🇬 | Jakarta ↔️ Singapore | 27,046 | 7 |
#4 | 🇭🇰🇨🇳 | Hong Kong ↔️ Shanghai | 20,678 | 5 |
#5 | 🇮🇩🇲🇾 | Jakarta ↔️ Kuala Lumpur | 19,741 | 8 |
#6 | 🇰🇷🇯🇵 | Seoul ↔️ Osaka | 19,711 | 8 |
#7 | 🇺🇸🇨🇦 | New York (LGA) ↔️ Toronto | 17,038 | 3 |
#8 | 🇭🇰🇰🇷 | Hong Kong ↔️ Seoul | 15,770 | 9 |
#9 | 🇹🇭🇸🇬 | Bangkok ↔️ Singapore | 14,698 | 5 |
#10 | 🇦🇪🇰🇼 | Dubai ↔️ Kuwait | 14,581 | 4 |
The short hop between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur takes only one hour, and it connects two major Southeast Asian commercial hubs. The route has 41 flights per day between eight airlines, making it one of the most competitive routes globally.
The busiest international route outside of the Asia Pacific is between Toronto and New York (LaGuardia) with 17,038 annual flights. Interestingly, it only has three competing carriers – the lowest of any of the top 10 routes.
Misc
Ranked: America’s Best Universities
Evaluated on 19 different metrics, here’s the list of America’s best universities, led by 14 private schools.

Ranked: America’s Best Universities
The latest ranking of America’s best universities is here, perfectly timed for the approaching admissions season.
“Best” is of course subjective, and U.S. News and World Report has compiled 19 metrics on which they evaluated more than 400 national universities. Some of them include:
- Graduation rates & performance: A four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class earning a bachelor’s degree in six years or less. Performance is measured against predictions made by the publishers, and when beaten, the university gains a higher scoring.
- Peer assessment: A two-year weighted average of ratings from top academics—presidents, provosts and deans of admissions—on academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar.
- Financial resources: The average per student spend on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2021 fiscal year.
- Debt: A school’s average accumulated federal loan debt among borrowers only.
- Pell graduation rates & performance: the same calculation as stated above, but focused only on Pell Grant students, adjusted to give more credit to schools with larger Pell student proportions.
The website’s methodology section details how they sourced their data, the weights assigned to each metric, and their changes over the years.
From the hundreds assessed come the nearly 50 best universities that offer a variety of undergraduate majors, post-graduate programs, emphasize research, or award professional practice doctorates.
Which are the Best Universities in America?
At the top of the list, Princeton University is the best university in the country, known for its physics, economics, and international relations departments. Notably, it’s a rare Ivy league university that does not have a law, medical, or business school.
Here’s the full ranking of America’s best universities, along with annual tuition requirements.
Rank | School Name | State | Tuition |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Princeton University | New Jersey | $59,710 |
2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Massachusetts | $60,156 |
3 | Harvard University | Massachusetts | $59,076 |
3 | Stanford University | California | $62,484 |
5 | Yale University | Connecticut | $64,700 |
6 | University of Pennsylvania | Pennsylvania | $66,104 |
7 | California Institute of Technology | California | $63,255 |
7 | Duke University | North Carolina | $66,172 |
9 | Brown University | Rhode Island | $68,230 |
9 | Johns Hopkins University | Maryland | $63,340 |
9 | Northwestern University | Illinois | $65,997 |
12 | Columbia University | New York | $65,524 |
12 | Cornell University | New York | $66,014 |
12 | University of Chicago | Illinois | $65,619 |
15 | University of California, Berkeley | California | $48,465 (out-state) $15,891 (in-state) |
15 | University of California, LA | California | $46,326 (out-state) $13,752 (in-state) |
17 | Rice University | Texas | $58,128 |
18 | Dartmouth College | New Hampshire | $65,511 |
18 | Vanderbilt University | Tennessee | $63,946 |
20 | University of Notre Dame | Indiana | $62,693 |
21 | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | Michigan | $57,273 (out-state) $17,786 (in-state) |
22 | Georgetown University | Washington, DC | $65,082 |
22 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | North Carolina | $39,338 (out-state) $8,998 (in-state) |
24 | Carnegie Mellon University | Pennsylvania | $63,829 |
24 | Emory University | Georgia | $60,774 |
24 | University of Virginia | Virginia | $58,950 (out-state) $22,323 (in-state) |
24 | Washington University, St. Louis | Missouri | $62,982 |
28 | University of California, Davis | California | $46,043 (out-state) $15,266 (in-state) |
28 | University of California, San Diego | California | $48,630 (out-state) $16,056 (in-state) |
28 | University of Florida | Florida | $28,658 (out-state) $6,381 (in-state) |
28 | University of Southern California | California | $68,237 |
32 | University of Texas, Austin | Texas | $41,070 (out-state) $11,698 (in-state) |
33 | Georgia Institute of Technology | Georgia | $32,876 (out-state) $11,764 (in-state) |
33 | University of California, Irvine | California | $47,759 (out-state) $15,185 (in-state) |
35 | New York University | New York | $60,438 |
35 | University of California, Santa Barbara | California | $45,658 (out-state) $14,881 (in-state) |
35 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Illinois | $36,068 (out-state) $17,572 (in-state) |
35 | University of Wisconsin, Madison | Wisconsin | $40,603 (out-state) $11,205 (in-state) |
39 | Boston College | Massachusetts | $67,680 |
40 | Rutgers University, New Brunswick | New Jersey | $36,001 (out-state) $17,239 (in-state) |
40 | Tufts University | Massachusetts | $67,844 |
40 | University of Washington | Washington | $41,997 (out-state) $12,643 (in-state) |
43 | Boston University | Massachusetts | $65,168 |
43 | The Ohio State University | Ohio | $36,722 (out-state) $12,485 (in-state) |
43 | Purdue University, Main Campus | Indiana | $28,794 (out-state) $9,992 (in-state) |
46 | University of Maryland, College Park | Maryland | $40,306 (out-state) $11,505 (in-state) |
47 | Lehigh University | Pennsylvania | $62,180 |
47 | Texas A&M University | Texas | $40,607 (out-state) $12,413 (in-state) |
47 | University of Georgia | Georgia | $30,220 (out-state) $11,180 (in-state) |
47 | University of Rochester | New York | $64,384 |
47 | Virginia Tech | Virginia | $36,090 (out-state) $15,478 (in-state) |
47 | Wake Forest University | North Carolina | $64,758 |
53 | Case Western Reserve University | Ohio | $62,234 |
53 | Florida State University | Florida | $21,683 (out-state) $6,517 (in-state) |
53 | Northeastern University | Massachusetts | $63,141 |
53 | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | Minnesota | $36,402 (out-state) $16,488 (in-state) |
53 | William & Mary | Virginia | $48,841 (out-state) $25,041 (in-state) |
MIT places second, and Harvard and Stanford tie for third. Yale rounds out the top five.
Private universities, including seven Ivy League colleges, dominate the top of the rankings. Meanwhile, the highest-ranked public schools are tied at 15th, both state schools in California.
For affordability, since the higher ranks are populated by private universities, there tends to be a broad correlation of better universities being more expensive. That said, the most expensive school in the top 50 ranks is actually the University of Southern California, tied at 28th, for $68,237/year.
As it happens, also tied at 28th, the University of Florida is the most affordable public school for in-state students ($6,381/year) and Florida State University tied at 53rd, is the most affordable for out-of-staters at $21,683/year.
However these costs are tuition-only, and don’t account for other necessary expenses: accommodation, food, and textbooks.
Best University versus Best “Fit”
Finding the best university for prospective students is more than just perusing a long ranking list.
Aside from the numerous schools present within each university—which can often be the best for specific majors—factors like location, proximity to family, campus culture, the non-academic pursuits (sports, extracurriculars, internships) are also taken into consideration.
In fact, research has found that just attaining a university degree improves future earnings potential and employability.
Furthermore, individual engagement at college (irrespective of the rank of the school in question) plays a far bigger role in learning and general well-being than simply attending a highly-ranked school.
However, for low income and minority students, attending a top-ranked school does improve future earnings considerably. For women, it also often results in delaying marriage and kids, which results in more work-hours and as a result, more pay.
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