Cape Town to Joburg is one of the busiest domestic air routes in the world

 ·14 Jan 2018

The air link between Cape Town and Johannesburg has been ranked as one of the busiest and most reliable domestic routes in the world, according to the latest Punctuality Report by air travel intelligence group, OAG.

The 2018 On-Time Airline & Airport Rankings, published this month, ranks airports and airlines across the globe, looking specifically at the punctuality and reliability of flights. For the first time, OAG also looked at the busiest domestic routes.

With 31,914 passengers frequenting the route, the trip between Johannesburg and Cape Town ranks as the ninth busiest domestic route in the world, with an on-time performance rate of 86% – making it the second most reliable route among the top 20.

Breaking the reliability rates down by carrier, Safair carries the highest punctuality rate at 95.9%, followed by Comair (87.4%), SAA (85.5%) and Mango (80.5%).

The table below shows the top 20 busiest domestic routes in the world, including reliability rates.

# Route Country Frequency On-time Performance
1 Jeju – Seoul Gimpo South Korea 64 991 74.06%
2 Melbourne – Sydney Australia 54 519 74.10%
3 Mumbai – Delhi India 47 462 59.14%
4 Fukuoka – Tokyo Haneda Japan 42 835 83.43%
5 Rio de Janerio – Sao Paulo Congonhas Brazil 39 325 80.09%
6 Sapporo – Tokyo Haneda Japan 38 389 85.56%
7 Los Angeles – San Francisco United States 34 897 63.86%
8 Brisbane – Sydney Australia 33 765 79.28%
9 Cape Town – Johannesburg South Africa 31 914 86.83%
10 Beijing – Shanghai China 30 029 53.47%
11 Bengaluru – Delhi India 29 427 65.93%
12 New York La Guardia – Chicago United States 29 163 73.71%
13 Bogota – Medellin Colombia 27 092 68.61%
14 Brisbane – Melbourne Australia 25 709 79.18%
15 New York JFK – Los Angeles United States 25 258 67.96%
16 Bengaluru – Mumbai India 23 857 56.72%
17 Tokyo Haneda – Osaka Japan 21 900 90.40%
18 Bogota – Cali Colombia 21 792 70.32%
19 Beijing – Shenzhen China 21 675 50.44%
20 Shanghai – Shenzhen China 21 644 59.14%

Only one South African airport makes an appearance in the OAG airport rankings – with Durban’s King Shaka International Airport ranking as one of the top small airports in the world.

Small airports are defined as those seating between 2.5 million and 5 million departing passengers per year.

Durban ranked fourth, with a coverage rate of 80.0% and an on-time performance rate of 86.65%.


Read: South Africa to get a new low-cost airline

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