Passengers at the Tan Son Nhat Airport in HCM City
The Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City air route has continued to rank as the fourth busiest domestic air route in the world this year, with over 10.63 million seats sold, according to statistics from air travel data provider OAG.
The seats sold decreased 2 percent compared to last year's figure of over 10.80 million.
Vietnam has been among the ten countries with the busiest domestic air route, the Hanoi-HCM City route, since 2017.
All five local airlines, including Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet, Bamboo Airways, Pacific Airlines, and Vietravel Airlines, provide daily flights on this over 1,000-km route.
The Vietnam Civil Aviation Authority statistics showed that the Hanoi-HCM City air route saw over 9 million passengers in 2023, accounting for 22 percent of domestic passengers in all local air routes.
According to OAG, Seoul-Jeju in South Korea is the busiest domestic route globally, with some 14.2 million seats sold.
The route linking Hokkaido to Tokyo came second, followed by another Japanese route connecting Fukuoka to Tokyo Haneda.
The report also showed that nine of the ten busiest domestic airline routes of 2024 are in Asia-Pacific countries.
Meanwhile, this year, Hong Kong-Taipei is the busiest international route, with 6.78 million seats sold. It is followed by Cairo-Jeddah and Seoul Incheon-Tokyo Narita routes, with 5.47 and 5.41 million seats sold, respectively.
Seven of the ten busiest international routes are also in Asia-Pacific. However, seat capacity on many routes still hasn't recovered to the figures recorded in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.