Top 20: European Airlines

Ryanair will operate just over 15% of all total capacity flown across Europe in November 2021.

The Irish LCC remains Europe’s largest carrier, flying more ASMs to more destinations than any of its competitors, and more than double the number of departure seats of its nearest rival Turkish Airlines.

Hungarian LCC Wizz Air offers the third-highest number of destinations at 132, but is seventh in total departure seats for the month.

"While much has been made of Wizz’ growth ambitions since the start of the pandemic, this data indicates how far Ryanair remains ahead in the size of its network, operating close to five times as many seats as its competitor," said Wesley Charnock, Routes editor-in-chief.

"Its total of 11.4 million scheduled seats is actually ahead of the 10.8 million it offered in the same month in 2019, showing how aggressively it aims to stimulate the market as we head into winter. It will be interesting to see how LCC capacities hold up throughout the winter season, as fears over rising COVID levels grow and the number of sunny short-haul destinations available from Europe’s cooler climes shrink.”

Europe's top 20 airlines by total departure seats: November 2021

Airline name

Departure Seats

Destinations

ASMs

Ryanair

11409318

182

8764720302

Turkish Airlines

4911272

136

5211862839

easyJet

4041624

116

2697265486

Lufthansa

3957985

131

3671147367

Air France

2962798

88

3679048679

Aeroflot Russian Airlines

2653006

96

3129854453

Wizz Air

2568060

132

2226925484

Pegasus Airlines

2326677

90

1511378743

British Airways

2249471

80

3114274053

SAS Scandinavian Airlines

2176988

81

1305810003

KLM-Royal Dutch Airlines

1969166

89

2653805778

Vueling Airlines

1932776

82

1185336773

Iberia

1883564

71

1943578863

Eurowings

1347774

85

860350410

Pobeda

1142127

41

1024636103

TAP Air Portugal

1055854

43

1334890319

Norwegian Air Shuttle

1051458

51

545711730

S7 Airlines

993766

68

993264056

Italia Trasporto Aereo

975680

32

440697180

SWISS

904950

69

902394607

Data courtesy of OAG Schedules Analyser

Photo credit: Rob Finlayson