India has emerged as the world’s fifth largest aviation market, handling 241 million passengers in 2024, while the Mumbai–Delhi route ranked 7th among the world’s busiest airport pairs, according to the World Air Transport Statistics (WATS) released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).India’s passenger numbers grew 11.1% over 2023, when it handled 211 million flyers, overtaking Japan, which recorded 205 million passengers, despite growing faster at 18.6%, PTI reported.“The US remains the world’s biggest aviation market with 876 million passengers in 2024 on the strength of its domestic market, growing 5.2 per cent year-on-year,” IATA said. China was the second-largest, with 741 million passengers, a jump of 18.7% over 2023.UK ranked third with 261 million flyers, followed by Spain (241 million) and India in fifth. These figures include both domestic and international passengers arriving or departing from each country.Among global airport pairs, the Mumbai–Delhi sector carried 5.9 million passengers in 2024, placing it 7th worldwide. The Jeju–Seoul (CJU–GMP) route in South Korea topped the chart with 13.2 million passengers.“Asia Pacific dominated the ranking for the world’s busiest airport pairs,” IATA noted, adding that Jeddah–Riyadh (JED–RUH) was the only non-Asia Pacific route in the top 10.Premium travel segment outpaces economy in some regionsInternational premium class travel — business and first class — grew 11.8% globally in 2024, slightly ahead of economy class growth at 11.5%. In all, 116.9 million passengers flew premium class, making up 6% of total international passengers.The Asia Pacific region led in growth with 22.8% more premium flyers year-on-year (21 million travellers). However, economy class travel in the region grew faster, up 28.6% to 500.8 million passengers.In contrast, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America saw faster growth in premium than economy travel. Europe remained the largest market for international premium travel with 39.3 million passengers, while premium flyers were the highest proportionally in the Middle East at 14.7%.B737 and A320 dominate skiesIn terms of aircraft usage, Boeing’s B737 led the skies with 10 million flights and 2.4 trillion Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs) in 2024. The Airbus A320 followed with 7.9 million flights and 1.7 trillion ASKs, and the Airbus A321 came third with 3.4 million flights and 1.1 trillion ASKs.ASK is a key metric used in aviation to measure passenger-carrying capacity.