The association's report also shows that the number of travelers preferring airplanes as a mode of transport increased by 6.9% over the past year, reaching 4.4 billion passengers. Experts consider the growing interest of tourists in affordable low-cost carriers, demand for which rose by 13.4% last year, as one of the fundamental reasons for this trend.
Last year, airplanes carried over 126 million citizens of the UK (8.6% of all passengers) and 111.5 million tourists from the USA (7.6%). In third place in terms of the number of flights to other countries was China. 97 million citizens of this country (6.6% of the total flow) visited other countries, choosing airplanes as a means of transportation. Fourth place went to Germany – in 2018, airliners carried over 94 million Germans. In fifth place is France with 60 million air passengers.
As reported by "Russkaya Germaniya", in 2017, Hong Kong and Luxembourg led a similar ranking.