The United States retained its standing as the world's largest air passenger market in 2025, according to the International Air Transport Association's 2025 World Air Transport Statistics report, released Thursday.
The U.S. in 2025 had 890.1 million passengers, an increase of 1.6 percent year over year, according to IATA. Nevertheless, its growth rate was the slowest among the top 10 markets. China was second with 776.1 million passengers, up 4.8 percent, followed by the U.K. in third with 269.7 million passengers for an increase of 3.4 percent.
Of the top 10 markets, Japan, in fifth with 223.5 million passengers, reported the sharpest growth rate at 9.2 percent year over year.
Total passengers in international premium class—business and first class—increased 4.5 percent year over year in 2025 to 109.7 million. That figure accounted for 5.5 percent of all international travelers, according to IATA.
By region, Latin America and the Caribbean had the largest 2025 increase in premium-class passengers, up 22.1 percent year over year to 4 million. Europe remained the largest market for premium travel with 39.7 million passengers, though that figure declined 2.7 percent, according to IATA. Asia-Pacific premium travelers increased 10 percent for the period to 24.5 million, North America was up 4.6 percent to 19.2 million, the Middle East increased 9.1 percent to 18.7 million, and Africa reported an 8.5 percent increase to 3.5 million.
Nine of the world's 10 busiest airport pairs in 2025 were in the Asia-Pacific region, led by South Korea's Jeju and Seoul Gimpo airports with 13.3 million passengers. The only non-Asian top global pair was between Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia with 7 million passengers, according to IATA.
The busiest North American domestic airport pair in 2025 was New York (JFK)-Los Angeles with 2.2 million passengers. JFK-London Heathrow was the busiest international airport pair for the region with 2.1 million passengers. Europe's top domestic pair remained between Spain's Barcelona Josep Tarradellas-El Prat Airport and Palma de Mallorca with 2.1 million passengers. The European pair with the largest growth rate was Sweden's Stockholm Arlanda Airport and Malmö Airport, increasing 85 percent year over year to more than 271,000 passengers.