How have the world’s largest airlines grown since the pandemic?

Which are the world’s largest airline groups? How many of them have grown capacity since the pandemic? To help answer these questions we have analyzed the world’s top 25 largest airlines ranked by seat capacity for the third quarter of 2022, as of mid-August. We also show how these companies rank by growth since 2019, before the pandemic.

Data from Diio by Cirium, the industry’s premier airline planning system used by aviation professionals around the world, shows that American Airlines, the largest airline by seats, is still considerably smaller now than it was at this time in 2019.

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Europe’s Wizz Air, IndiGo, and Ryanair, by contrast, have increased their capacity substantially. Turkish Airlines, Southwest, and the combined JetBlue–Spirit have also grown since the pandemic. China Southern’s capacity is up slightly, boosted by growth at its Xiamen Airlines affiliate. Emirates, on the other hand, is still almost a third smaller than it was.

Just as China Southern’s figures include Xiamen Airlines, Lufthansa’s include all its subsidiaries, including Swiss, Austrian, Brussels, Eurowings, etc. Air China includes Shenzhen Airlines. Air France/KLM includes Transavia. Ryanair includes all its distinct operating certificates.