World’s Largest Airlines by Fleet Size

The 20^th century has seen its phase of phenomenal development in the air transport sector. From hemisphere to hemisphere, from continent to continent, from country to country, and now from city to city; Air travel has improvised to be a suitable substitute in an expansive span of radial distances.

The commercialization of the industry has led to formation of the present global village compact enough to be interconnected in one accessible realm. Today it stands out to be somewhat of a conventional mode of commutation for many. In the race for clamoring to stand out with the largest market, there are airlines which have expanded on a consistent basis.

There are many ways through which the global size ranking can be done. This ranking is done by the number of planes accumulated by airlines in their operational fleet for covering their national and international flight routes. There are exceptional cases which cause distortion in such rankings mainly due to the fact that some have bulkier capacity to airlift greater number of passengers in fewer planes.

There are also airlines present which may have fewer planes than others but their market strategy revolves around spreading their routes over a larger range of destinations rather than concentrating their presence on major destinations. Air Canada, Air China, Turkish Airlines and British Airways are the most prominent among such airlines.

Delta Air Lines took the top position during the past two years with an addition of 54 planes to its fleet, making an astounding tally of 744 planes. The Atlanta-based airline has shouldered the largest passenger  count as well, thus cementing its reign in all respects with an air route coverage of 358 destinations, the largest known number of destinations under operation of any single airline.

With a colossal partnership, United airlines remains a competitive second-most largest airline. After taking over Continental airlines as an overall merger to make a decisive attempt, United boasts a fleet of 712 planes. Consequently, it also falls just behind Delta, with a destination map spread over 287 locations worldwide.

However, the most resounding leap among the top ten has been made by Lufthansa. The German-based airline has towered above Europe with additional orders to expand more than twice its fleet size it had two years back. Lufthansa had 334 recorded number of jets in 2010, and today it falls just 2 planes short of United airlines at 710. On the contrary, Lufthansa’s operations tend to focus more on major locations rather than route distribution, as it ranks 6^th when it comes to number of locations covered with a total of 202 locations on its map.

The fourth place is raked in by our largest domestic carrier spreading its wings in the biggest country existent on the face of the earth, the United States. Yes, with a fleet of 692 planes, Southwest airlines seal the deal. Its international counterpart within the same nation, American Airlines turns in at the 5^th position with 624 aircraft. This one does seem ambitious, with the airlines stretched to 3rd place in destination coverage with a total count of roundabout 250 locations. With 616 aircraft under its name to cover 245 destinations, Air France gains 6th position in international ranking for fleet size and 4th in international destination coverage. China Southern, with 345 aircraft, comes in at 8th, US airways at 9th, and Ryan air ends the list at 10th position with a total number of 272 aircraft.