Dubai to Heathrow now world’s top international market

Dubai to Heathrow is now the world’s top international market; it wasn’t in the top-10 last winter. The significant changes to the top-10 list are just temporary.  This includes total seats, down as they now are by 11 million to just over six million.

Dubai to Heathrow is the world’s number-one international market by seats this winter. 

It has pushed the previous top – Hong Kong to Taipei – off the top spot, with this no longer in the top-10 list. 

In fact, there is now only one within Asia-Pacific – Seoul Incheon to Tokyo Narita – down from seven a year before.

Seven markets now involve the Middle East.  This includes the only one to feature in both lists: Cairo to Jeddah.  This is now the world’s second-largest, despite seat capacity being down by 43% YOY.

Read more: Jeddah is by far Cairo’s top route.

If Puerto Rico were a sovereign state, Orlando to San Juan would instead be the world’s second-biggest.  In the current week, it has 90 weekly flights each way across four carriers.

Other markets just outside the top-10 include Dallas Fort Worth to Cancun, New York JFK to Santo Domingo, and Los Angeles to Guadalajara. There are presently 59 weekly flights from Los Angeles to Guadalajara.

Top international markets: winter 2020 versus 2019

Dubai to Heathrow now 35 weekly

Dubai now features four times in the top-10, up from one. 

Heathrow is currently served 35-weekly across both Emirates (26) and British Airways (nine), with 14 services by the A380.  

These 35 are down from 63 in the same week last year; Emirates now has 16 fewer flights and BA 13.

It’ll be interesting to see if schedules are cut further following the UK government ending travel corridors.  Now, everyone entering the UK has to quarantine.

In pre-coronavirus 2019, approximately 55% of Emirates’ passengers connected over Dubai from Heathrow, booking data via OAG Traffic Analyser shows.  Male, Sydney, Karachi, Mumbai, Delhi, Brisbane, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Colombo, and Bangkok were its top-10 O&Ds.

For BA, around 27% connected over Heathrow to Dubai.  Aberdeen, Dublin, Toulouse, Belfast City, Manchester, Paris CDG, Berlin Tegel, New York JFK, Montreal, and Newcastle were top.