Aviation's First XV: The biggest airlines in the world by seats on offer
The power and scale of the United States' aviation market is reflected in latest figures on the biggest airlines.
The top four carriers - by seats available for the past year - are all based in the US.
Figures released by global aviation consultants OAG are for the 12 months to February this year and also show the big Chinese mainland airlines in the first 15 by size.
Fourth-biggest of the US airlines is United, which resumed services to New Zealand last year, and had 177 million seats on offer on its 897 routes. It had the most international routes among the American carriers with 22 per cent of flights outside the US.
OAG notes that compared to the other big airlines United has a small, ageing fleet although a large number of aircraft are on order.
Third-biggest is Southwest, which is the biggest low-cost carrier in the world and operates an exclusively narrow-body fleet of 722 Boeing 737s.
Nearly all its flights are domestic (97 per cent) but its international routes grew by 24 per cent. The highest growth was in Belsize as part of a big push into Central America.
Delta Air Lines is second biggest, offering 223 million seats last year. The airline has the oldest fleet in the top 15: its seven Boeing 747s have an average age of 25 years, according to OAG.
Its fastest growing route is to Iceland, reflecting the surge in popularity of the Nordic country as a tourist destination.
American Airlines is the biggest airline, offering 250 million seats on the youngest fleet among the big four US carriers. In the past year it carried 201 million passengers.
Air New Zealand carries about 15 million passengers a year.
Its fastest growing country pair is US-Australia and American Airlines last year started flying to Auckland from Los Angeles.
Of the other airlines on the list, budget airline Ryanair comes in fifth by seats on offer but has the largest number of routes of the first 15 (1319). Its planes are fuller than the other airlines', with a load factor of 91 per cent.
Its fastest growing region is Eastern Europe and fastest-growing country pair is Germany to Bulgaria.
China Southern was ranked 6th. Photo / Greg Bowker
China Southern, China Eastern and Air China are ranked 6th, 7th and 11th respectively.
They are expanding their international routes but mostly fly domestically where their on- time performance (all below 70 per cent) is affected by constraints on air traffic around that country.
Emirates, ranked 13th by seat capacity, operates only to international destinations and has the longest average flight time of more than six hours.
Turkish Airlines operates to the most countries, flying to 117.
