New Delhi | India emerged as the world's fifth biggest aviation market, handling 241 million passengers, while Mumbai-Delhi was one of the busiest airport pairs in 2024, according to data released by global airlines' grouping IATA.

The International Airport Transport Association (IATA), which represents around 350 airlines, on Monday released the latest edition of the World Air Transport Statistics (WATS) for 2024.

India saw 211 million air passengers last year, a growth of 11.1 per cent compared to 2023, ahead of Japan, which handled 205 million passengers with an annual rise of 18.6 per cent.

"The US remains the world's biggest aviation market with 876 million passengers in 2024 on the strength of its domestic market, growing 5.2 per cent year-on-year.

"China was the second-biggest passenger market, with 741 million passengers, a growth of 18.7 per cent compared to 2023," it said in a release.

While India stood at the 5th place, the UK at the 3rd spot (261 million passengers) and Spain at the 4th position (241 million).

The figures include all international and domestic passengers departing or arriving in each country.

Among the top 10 airport pairs, Mumbai-Delhi was the 7th busiest, carrying 5.9 million passengers in 2024.

"Asia Pacific dominated the ranking for the world's busiest airport pairs, with Jeju-Seoul (CJU-GMP) the most popular route globally, with 13.2 million passengers flying between the two airports in 2024.

"In the top 10, only one airport pair -- Jeddah-Riyadh (JED-RUH) -- was not in the Asia Pacific region," IATA said.

As per the grouping, international premium class travel -- business and first class -- grew 11.8 per cent, outpacing growth in global economy travel of 11.5 per cent.

In 2024, the total number of international premium class travellers was 116.9 million or 6 per cent of the total international passengers.

"Leading the regions in terms of percentage growth was Asia Pacific with a year-on-year growth of 22.8 per cent, with 21 million premium passengers -- although it was outpaced in growth by economy class passenger numbers, up 28.6 per cent to 500.8 million.

"Growth in premium travel exceeded economy class travel in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. Europe remained the largest market for international premium travel, with 39.3 million premium passengers, while premium travellers as a percentage of all travellers were highest in the Middle East at 14.7 per cent," IATA said.

Last year, narrow-body planes of Boeing and Airbus were among the most used ones.

Boeing's B737 alone flew 10 million flights with 2.4 trillion Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs) in 2024.

"This was followed by the Airbus A320 with 7.9 million flights and 1.7 trillion ASKs and the Airbus A321 with 3.4 million flights and 1.1 trillion ASKs," it said.

ASK is an indicator of capacity.