China Southern world’s third-largest airline this winter

China Southern has risen from the world’s sixth-largest carrier to third-largest. It is one of seven Chinese airlines in the world’s top-20, up from three in winter 2019.

China Southern is the world’s third-largest airline this winter.

It jumped three places from sixth in winter 2019, aided by 16% more seats year-on-year.

It is also because China is seemingly returning to normal faster than most countries from being the first country afflicted by the pandemic and from its enormous domestic market. Domestic markets are, of course, rebounding faster than international.

Indeed, China’s total domestic seats are up by 35% this winter, OAG data shows. However, the country’s international market remains a shadow of its former self, down as it is by 87%.

Chinese airlines now account for seven of the world’s top-20 airlines, up from three last winter. They have 40% of the top-10 spots too, double YOY.

More widely, Asian airlines now feature 11 times in the top-20, up from five.

In all, seats provided by the top-20 carriers total almost 643 million this winter, down by 30%.

Ranking	Airline	Winter 2019 seats (two ways)	Airline	Winter 2020 seats (two ways)
1	American Airlines	109,274,517	American Airlines	71,107,058
2	Delta Air Lines	98,598,374	Delta Air Lines	69,538,116
3	Southwest	86,458,265	China Southern	58,036,493
4	United Airlines	81,643,978	United Airlines	57,343,848
5	Ryanair	53,051,166	Southwest	53,106,637
6	China Southern	49,761,777	China Eastern	50,596,704
7	China Eastern	44,386,069	Air China	37,182,139
8	IndiGo	40,500,050	IndiGo	30,503,532
9	LATAM	39,777,302	All Nippon	22,461,923
10	easyJet	36,922,204	Hainan Airlines	19,308,865
11	Turkish Airlines	34,819,981	LATAM	19,278,429
12	Lufthansa	32,990,770	Alaska Airlines	18,420,501
13	Air China	32,700,605	Ryanair	18,345,753
14	Emirates	31,146,177	Shenzhen Airlines	17,956,989
15	All Nippon	29,926,033	Xiamen Airlines	17,787,626
16	Air Canada	26,037,037	Turkish Airlines	17,728,438
17	Air France	25,445,725	Sichuan Airlines	16,556,963
18	British Airways	24,523,651	Japan Airlines	16,017,813
19	Alaska	24,294,472	Spirit	15,962,638
20	Aeroflot	22,609,672	Lion Air	15,628,069
Bold and green = risen in list or entered list; blue = remained the same YOY; red = declined in list. Source: OAG Schedules Analyser.

China Southern rise aided by the decline of others

Of course, such development has been aided by the decline of other airlines from lockdowns, quarantines, and border closures.

While American and Delta retain their top-two positions, Southwest, LATAM, Ryanair, and Turkish Airlines have all fallen. But they remain in the top-20.

Multiple others, including Lufthansa, British Airways, easyJet, and Aeroflot, have all fallen out of the top-20 list completely. Europe remains a very badly-hit region.

Interestingly, Spirit joins the table this winter, in 19th place, up from 27th last winter.

And Alaska Airlines, which has introduced multiple new routes since coronavirus began, is now the world’s 12thlargest, up from 19th, despite a one-quarter decline in capacity. The carrier has this week announced both San Diego to New York JFK, supplementing its existing Newark service, and Los Angeles to Austin.

Of course, most of this shuffling about is only temporary, although each region and country will take very different times to recover. There will be many bumps on the road to recovery, but it absolutely will happen.

Although this screenshot was taken at nearly 2100 in China, so perhaps not a terribly fair time, it is nonetheless indicative. Chinese airlines now account for seven of the top-20 largest airlines globally by total seats. Source: Flightradar24.