Top Airlines by Passengers Carried 2025

The eight largest airlines in the world by passengers carried in 2025, in millions. American Airlines leads on 220 million, with Delta Air Lines on 210 million and Ryanair on 185 million.

Together these carriers moved 1,292 million passengers. The four United States airlines in the table — American, Delta, Southwest and United — account for 775 million of them, or 60 percent, which says more about the size of the American domestic market than about the reach of any individual airline. The United States has a large population spread across a continent with limited passenger rail, and short domestic hops fill aircraft repeatedly.

Ryanair's position is the one that catches the eye: third on 185 million, ahead of Southwest on 175 million and United on 170 million, from a single continent and almost entirely short-haul. Emirates, at 62 million, sits last in this table while operating one of the world's largest long-haul networks — it carries a little over a quarter of what American Airlines does.

That contrast is the point worth understanding. Passenger counts reward short flights: an airline flying eight one-hour routes a day fills more seats than one flying a single fourteen-hour route. Measured instead by revenue passenger kilometres — passengers multiplied by distance flown — the order of this table changes substantially, and long-haul carriers move up.

One caveat on definitions: figures include passengers carried by an airline's regional subsidiaries and by wholly owned affiliates, and different carriers draw that line in different places. Group totals and airline totals are not always the same number, which is why sources sometimes disagree by several million on the same carrier.