New Delhi, Feb 14: As per the latest statistics released on the number of seats deployed by domestic and international carriers, the Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi route has emerged as the most preferred route by air travellers, followed by Delhi-Bengaluru-Delhi and Mumbai-Bengaluru-Mumbai.

Post 2014, claims the data compiled by civil aviation research firm OAG, the routes of Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi and Delhi-Pune-Delhi have witnessed an unprecedented surge.

The Delhi-Pune route has jumped from the fifteenth spot in 2007 to the sixth position of the pecking order in 2017. Similarly, the Delhi-Kolkata route has scaled up from the seventh to the fourth position, said the data accessed by The Indian Express.

Full List of Top 10 Air Routes:

Route 2017 Rank 2007 Rank Seats Deployed in 2017 Seats Deployed in 2007
Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi 1 1 86.18 lakh 62.92 lakh
Delhi-Bengaluru-Delhi 2 4 48.23 lakh 23.38 lakh
Mumbai-Bengaluru-Mumbai 3 2 39.27 lakh 33.14 lakh
Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi 4 6 36.87 lakh 19.06 lakh
Delhi-Hyderabad-Delhi 5 7 30.71 lakh 19.04 lakh
Delhi-Pune-Delhi 6 15 30.31 lakh 9.74 lakh
Delhi-Chennai-Delhi 7 11 30.00 lakh 16.38 lakh
Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai 8 9 29.32 lakh 18.10 lakh
Mumbai-Dubai-Mumbai 9 14 28.77 lakh 11.25 lakh
Mumbai-Chennai-Mumbai 10 3 28.54 lakh 24.97 lakh

Among those aerial routes which recorded a sluggish growth in the past 10 years include Mumbai-Ahmedabad-Mumbai (which dropped from 8th to 15th position), Mumbai-Chennai-Mumbai (down from 3rd to 10th rank) and Mumbai-Kolkata-Mumbai, which down slided from 12th to the 17th position in the pecking order.

Experts attribute the less than expected growth in the above air sectors primarily to the growing congestion at the Mumbai airport terminals.

While the growth in overall air commutation between 2007 to 2014 is on expected lines, the sharp surge seen post 2014 is due to the dip in crude oil prices, which in turn brought down the air fares. To validate the fact, analysts claim the spurt in domestic air traffic is not in isolation to the growth seen in global air commutation in the past three years.

Interestingly, the Mumbai-Dubai-Mumbai is the only international route which featured in the top 10 list.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 14, 2018 11:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).