QUESTION FOR THE WEEK: Airport connectivity is key for corporate travellers, but what are the world’s largest airports by destinations served?

19 January, 2020

In our weekly series to break up those Monday morning office blues, The Blue Swan Daily tests your knowledge and insight into the aviation and travel industry. This is all just for fun. Who knows? We may occasionally find a prize somewhere around CAPA HQ. This week's question is detailed below. The answers will be revealed and winners (if there are any correct entries) announced next week alongside our next question.


It is that time of the year that we start to see lots of rankings about 2019 performance. Whether that is numbers of passengers, aircraft movements, bottles of gin sold, there are numerous parameters that can be used to highlight success. However, when it comes to corporate travel, connectivity is one of the important parameters. We can probably all name the world's largest airports by passengers, but can we similarly name the largest airports by destinations served?

Our QUESTION OF THE WEEK is... Airport connectivity is key for corporate travellers, but what are the world's largest airports by destinations served?

JOIN IN THE FUN: Send your answers to: The Blue Swan Daily Content Team


Our previous question asked… As the British public go to the polls this week, and with Brexit still delivering economic uncertainty, which airports in the country have seen the largest capacity growth during a challenging 2019?

Analysis by The Blue Swan Daily of OAG schedule data shows seat supply from the UK was up +1.3% for the full 2019 calendar year, versus 2018. The performance though has been impacted by events of the latter couple of months of the year, notably the collapse of Thomas Cook Airlines. Departure capacity was up +2.2% year-on-year in 1Q 2019, growing to +2.5% in 2Q, before slipping to +1.7% in 3Q and slipping into negative territory in 4Q.

Still, all but two of the UK's ten largest airports saw year-on-year growth in departure capacity in 2019. Those with declining departure capacity were London Stansted (-0.9%) and Glasgow (-9.5%), with capacity reductions among the top 20 airports also being reported at Newcastle (-2.3%), Liverpool (-0.4%), East Midlands (-3.9%), Aberdeen (-6.6%), Belfast City (-1.9%), Jersey (-0.2%) and Southampton (-10.9%), according to our analysis.

But, we asked which airports in the country have seen the largest capacity growth during a challenging 2019? Stand out performers comprised London Southend, where departure capacity was up +26.0% year-on-year; Doncaster Sheffield, with a +19.7% growth; Bournemouth with an +18.6% rise; and Londonderry in Northern Ireland, were a PSO link to London helped boost capacity +17.8%.

Among the country's top ten airports it was another London airport that topped the performance, this time Luton with a +8.6% rise in departure capacity. Luton also had the largest net gain in departure capacity ahead of the larger Manchester airport, were capacity was up +4.7%.