Talk:Largest airlines in the world

Clarifying

The line However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as of 26 October 2020 the largest airline in the world is China Southern. American Airlines is now in second place, with Delta at number one doesn't say where CS surpassed AA. Huskermax5 (talk) 15:47, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Serious Problems with this Page

There are many talk items on here dealing with specific problems that this page has. There are many. I've added some tags showing that large parts of the page are uncited. Further, someone keeps changing the number of destinations to which Turkish Airlines flies, in spite of its citation. This, combined with all of the issues on this page, leads me to think this page is almost irrevocably screwed up. "Irrevocably f*****" would be my first choice of phrase. I think we need to do some section blanking, ala what happened to Flag Carrier when the number of uncited items in it became too large to allow. Further, the page is inconsistent among itself, with Air France-KLM being listed together in some lists and apart in others, with the same for BA and Iberia. We have no way of knowing if one list, say, includes United's subsidiaries, while another list does not. Or if one list includes United's subsidiaries but not Delta's because the data comes from multiple sources that are rarely cited in the first place. It's a sad conclusion, but this page needs some mass fixing or some mass removal.75.34.181.103 (talk) 03:16, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The data here is around five years old. According to the IATA (http://www.iata.org/ps/publications/Pages/wats-passenger-carried.aspx) Ryanair has come out on top, and Delta has surpassed American in terms of passengers carried internationally. Many revisions need to be done.

The link in the previous para. does not work. This may be a naive suggestion but if IATA publishes this data why not redirect users there?

I wholeheartedly agree. This article should either be completely updated or just deleted.Bebofpenge (talk) 11:57, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Passengers carried internationally isn't even a table in this article. Ryanair is most certainly not on top in terms of total passengers, according to IATA (https://www.iata.org/publications/pages/wats-passenger-carried.aspx .) At the very least, all 4 of the major U.S. airlines (Delta, American, United, and Southwest) and China Southern have more passengers than Ryanair (by far in the case of Southwest, Delta, and American.) Note that the listings in that article for American and U.S. Airways should now be combined, as they now officially operate under one certificate as American Airlines; U.S. Airways officially no longer exists.

Part of the problem with this article's sourcing is that a lot of the lists are not publicly available. IATA only publicly lists the top 10 in each category, for example. In some regions, government regulatory organizations make more complete statistics available, but that information just covers those individual regions, rather than the whole world.

Also, why even have a "Number of countries served" list? That seems like a rather useless measure of airline size. It's more a measure of how geopolitically divided the carrier's home region happens to be than of the size of the airline. It's also not accurate if the intent is to list how many countries said airline will sell you a ticket to, since most major airlines are part of an alliance that will sell you a ticket to pretty much anywhere in the world. At least the other lists have some kind of meaningful relationship to the size of the airline. Vbscript2 (talk) 05:41, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Moreover, someone has changed the image appearing as the shortcode for this page to show the Ryanair image. To me it seems quite a stretch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.13.17 (talk) 12:47, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Don't understand

Why is British airways separate on some of the stats and then combined with Iberia for other stats. This seems misleading. Jacob805 06:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob805 (talk • contribs)

I agree. 2.123.148.96 (talk) 14:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the article is sub-standard. Your concerns, and some of those in the previous section, are mirrored in the discussions at List of largest airlines in Europe. So if this page isn't to be deleted (and it is nonsense as it stands), a solution is to reduce the number of tables radically, and limit the information to airlines (e.g. British Airways), as the article is titled. If deemed necessary, have separate ones for airline groups (e.g. International Airlines Group). Carbonix (talk) 18:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

This also seems to the case as well for air France and Klm.2.120.33.250 (talk) 10:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, contributors seem to be biased toward certain airlines. They seem to favour some airlines over others due to their nationality. This can also be attributed to lack of clear definition of an airline which should be stated right on the top of the page. Eg, United Express aircrafts are in fact owned by SkyWest or others but their passengers are listed under United Airlines. United Express is not a subsidary of United Airlines. IATA figures for the United Airlines Revenue Passenger-Kilometres flown do not include the figures of the United Express. Also, fleet size is very misleading comparison. How can you count a 20 passenger capacity plane as same as Airbus A380? Passenger capacity should be the comparison point , not the count of the planes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.214.163.16 (talk) 04:12, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

fleetsize

Lufthansa have more than 700 aircraft and how come it is not a part of this list? 89.237.136.194 (talk) 13:53, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Lufthansa and its subsidiaries combined have more than 700 aircraft. The airline itself has only 221 aircraft in its fleet. Snoozlepet (talk) 01:35, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

But in this list Air France/KLM are listed together as a group, in size and figures. Why do we not siz-up Lufthansa Group with all the other subsidiaries?--Cruks (talk) 08:01, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

this is misleading Lufthansa group has been included. As the US airlines only have there mainline aircraft lists. Delta air lines mainline aircraft is 772 but you NOT have listed any if its group such skywest or delta connection this is an additional 614 aircraft, so from a group stand point, its fleet is well over 1300 Aircraft. compared to Lufthansa

Fleet Size of Airlines, with or without SkyWest?

Someone keeps taking off SkyWest from the list of airlines by fleet size, because it flies for other airlines. However, that's definitely not how that should be done. Either it should include SkyWest (it is still an airline), or add the fleet number to the other airlines, like Air Canada, Jazz, and the other regionals that fly for them. What do you think? Njaohnt (talk) 01:07, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The fleet figures currently on the page include all regional carriers for United (as far as I can tell), American Eagle but not non-wholly-owned subsidiaries for American, and a number that is not in the cited source for Delta; in other words, a mess. I'm not sure there is a reliable source for fleet numbers that include non-owned subsidiaries, so I think that switching the table back to by operating carrier (or owner) would be best. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 05:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Skywest is irrelevant unless there is a specific separate data of Skywest planes operating for AND branded as SKYWEST AIRLINES (with that specific license) and NOT flying on behalf of third party airlines (EXCLUDING Skywest owned but Delta or some other airline operated aircraft that therefore is already counted in that third party airline's stats). Otherwise the entire page will be corrupted and is no longer about airlines but aircraft leasing companies. --Loginnigol (talk) 22:55, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

protection

I protected this article follwoinga request at RfPP. I've now removed that protection and removed it. There are a lot of fundamental problems with this page that can only be solved by consensus building on this page. There's been too many accusations of vandalism that are probably unfounded, and that doesn't help. You need to build consensus first. Thanks. GedUK  12:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistencies

As has been mentioned several times before, the presentation of the data in this article is inconsistent. In the list by passengers carried, Air France/KLM are considered one airline, while Lufthansa group is not. A recent attempt to make this consistent was reverted, with an unclear-to-me argument as to why they should be treated differently. In the later tables, all the merged holding companies (AF/KLM, Lufthansa Group, and International Airlines Group [BA/IB]) are listed together, except for the number of destinations table, which lists BA separately.

Also, it's unclear whether flights operated by other carriers (the Connection/Express carriers of the US airlines), or just wholly owned subsidiaries, are included.

I don't really care which choice is made, but it should be a) consistent across the article and b) clearly explained in the text of the article (not in edit summaries). Thoughts? —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 05:36, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree this article is blatantly unorganized. I think acquired holdings companies like Lufthansa Group should be separated as they are not one airline. In the case of airlines merging/integrating like Southwest/AirTran, United/Continental and soon American/US, when deals close, the numbers from there on should be combined. I also think that regional carriers operating for mainline airlines which is especially seen in the US with Delta/Connection, United/Express and American/Eagle should be combined as those operate as one airline. Also, I do not think regionals should be added on their own, i.e. SkyWest Airlines. The parts of SkyWest that operate for DL should be in DL's numbers etc... but they should not be put on their own because they operate for separate airlines. Aviationspecialist101 (talk) 22:39, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Fleet Size is way off

The fleet size is way off.Njaohnt (talk) 00:01, 21 June 2013 (UTC) Turkish Airlines were listed as 10th under fleet size, but Ryanair actually has the 10th largest fleet. I have amended this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dasaten (talk • contribs) 13:45, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Settling what counts as an airline

There are some inconsistencies on this page. They all stem from not consistently defining what an airline is, for the purposes of this page. IAG? SkyWest? ILFC? I propose the following resolutions:

1. IAG, Air France-KLM, Lufthansa Group, etc. should be considered unified airlines. Their management structures are integrated and their route maps reflect their cooperation. Further, data for the individual airlines are very hard to come by. Practically speaking, the page would be very difficult to replicate if we had to extract, say, Iberia from IAG.
2. For the same reasons as above, integrated subsidiaries such as American Eagle should be treated as part of their parents' operations.
3. When an airline contracts its work out to a partner airline, such routes should be considered part of the major airline, and such passenger data should count for the major airline. As such, Chautauqua, Shuttle America, Pinnacle, and the like should be treated as part of the airlines for which they fly when they fly for those airlines. The major airlines are the ones funding and ultimately profiting from these arrangements, and the smaller airlines could not exist on those routes independently. The ticket is purchased for the major airline, and the branding is that of the major airline.
4. For fleet size, carriers should only count what they own, not what is used by outside carriers. Note that partner carriers, such as SkyWest, fly for multiple airlines, and their fleets cannot be double-booked.
5. If you can't buy a ticket for a particular airline, it should not be included. SkyWest, Pinnacle, and ILFC are, as such, not airlines. However, even though one buys a ticket for BA or Swiss, per #1 we should and have to count those airlines as part of IAG and Lufthansa. the rule then becomes: if you can't buy a ticket for an airline, it's not an airline, but just because you can buy a ticket for that airline doesn't mean said airline can't be included in a conglomerate.
6. If you are not an airline, you aren't on this page at all. The ILFC owns more than 1,000 planes, but it is not on this list because it simply leases those planes out to others.

Please comment, and let's arrive at a consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.131.107 (talk • contribs) 06:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree on nearly all counts. My only concern is a practical issue with #3. While I agree that the best way to report the numbers would be as marked flights (ie the airline brand that is typically painted on the side of the plane, eg all United Express flights count as United), at least in the US, those statistics may be difficult to obtain. The Department of Transportation reports statistics for operating carriers, so Sky West's operations for all of the US majors are lumped together in one line. That's relevant for passenger-miles flown statistics. However, the best sources for fleet size are typically airline press releases, which report the mainline plus regional fleets operated by the brand (ie Sky West's fleet is divided up and reported by each of the majors).

On #4, I think combined mainline plus regional fleets are best to report, but care most that the article is clear and consistent. (Currently, it's neither.) —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 06:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• The problem here is that we (e.g. Wikipedia) try to produce something which does not exist in the "outside world". There are just no universally agreed on parameters how to define the size of an airline (or rather, how to define "one airline" in the first place). Therefore, this Wikipedia article tends to be quite original research-ish and may also be in violation of WP:SYN. It would be best to acknowledge that there is just no definite answer for which airline is the largest and how this should be measured. Instead, different approaches found in reliable sources should be discussed and presented on equal footings.--FoxyOrange (talk) 07:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Not sure I agree with 71s points:

• 1. Disagree, airline groups are not airlines and only airlines with an AOC should be considered.
• 2. Disagree, "Integrated Subsidaries" should only be considered if they are on the same AOC.
• 3. Disagree, partner airlines are not part of the parent and should not be considered as the same airline.
• 4. Only the fleet owned and operated by the subject airline count, anything else belongs to somebody else.
• 5. Buying a ticket is not a criteria for being an airline, it may be a charter airline.
• 6. I dont think anybody would consider ILFC an airline under any criteria so is not reeally relevant to this page.

So clearly I dont agree with your definition of an airline with regard to this page. MilborneOne (talk) 17:43, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with everything but #1. Airlines that are part of the same group are not one airline, they are separate airlines that are just owned by one airline. Aviationspecialist101 (talk) 17:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Why not include separate tables for at least some of the statistics, assuming we can get sources for the numbers? Largest airline holding companies (which would combine AF/KL, LH and its subsidiaries, AMR and American Eagle Airlines, Alaska/Horizon, as well as SkyWest and its subsidiaries), Largest airline brands [is there a better word?] (which would list AF, KL, LH, Swiss, separately, but AA/Eagle/Eagle operated by SkyWest would all combine into one entry), and largest operating airlines (AF, KL, LH, AA, MQ, AS, QX would all be counted on their own, as would SkyWest combining all the brands they operate as). All of these statistics do have some merit. WP:NOTPAPER, after all. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 21:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Great that we've got a discussion going here. I think I can simplify the above points into two debatable points:

1. Is a conglomerate one airline, or are its parts separate airlines?

I'm up for debating this one. If we can reliably separate AF, KLM, BA, Iberia, and the like, then we can go for it. Looking at the recent data updates on this page, I think we can pull this off and am willing to change my vote from the above. I think the IATA data for passengers and passenger-kilometers flown is reliable, and it looks like we've found reliable destinations data for the individual airlines, as well. I favor trying to untie the conglomerates.

2. How do we classify a regional airline flying on behalf of a major airline?

I think we have to classify it as part of the major airline. The ticketing, management, systems, and branding are all part of the major airline. If I fly from Minneapolis to Omaha, I'm flying on "Delta Connection," on a plane that says Delta. I mention the ILFC precisely because no one claims it to be an airline. ILFC and Pinnacle are different, to be sure, but the line between them is quite gray, while the line between Pinnacle and United is stark. If we draw the line between ILFC and Pinnacle, we're left having to define what a "main line" flight is, and there's simply never going to be any data for that. The page becomes rife with original research and calculations. But it's not just practicality--the ticketing definition is legitimate, I believe. I can't buy a ticket for Pinnacle, just as I can't buy a ticket for the ILFC. Neither is an airline. One leases out its planes, while the other leases out its route servicing.71.194.131.107 (talk) 03:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

A different approach: What sources to use?

Judging from the above discussion on how to deal with airline groups and how to calculate aircraft in fleet, it seems very hard to achieve a consensus. Maybe it would be a good idea to debate about which reliable general sources should be used for this article in the first place. At World's busiest airport, this is quite evident, as official statistics are published. Concerning the question about the largest airlines, this does not seem to be the case. As stated above, I think this is the main issue of this article. There is not this one "overall reference", but rather a bunch of refs, which provide data for only one airline at a time. My understanding is that without any general source which list "the world's largest airlines", this Wikipedia article is purely a synthesis. There has to be a non-Wikipedia equivalent for any listing. If this Wikipedia article is to produce a statement like "ABC Air is the largest airline in the world in terms of xyz", this has to be backed by a reliable source (or it would be a violation of WP:OR). Note that a number of IATA links provided here are broken. Currently, this leaves the article with only one overview source: [1]. There, total passengers carried and revenue passenger kilometers are listed as of 2010.--FoxyOrange (talk) 18:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Currently, there are the following statements:

1. Delta Air Lines is the largest airline in terms of scheduled passengers carried (unsourced)
2. United Airlines is the largest airline in terms of scheduled passenger-kilometers flown (broken reference)
3. FedEx Express is the largest airline in terms of scheduled total freight tonne-kilometres flown (unsourced)
4. Delta Air Lines is the largest passenger airline in terms of fleet size (unsourced)
5. FedEx Express is the largest cargo airline in terms of fleet size (unsourced)
6. United Airlines is the largest airline in terms of destinations served (unsourced)

I'm pretty sure that once these claims are verified through reliable sources, the article would already be in a much better shape, regardless of the outcome of the above "What is an airline?" discussion.--FoxyOrange (talk) 18:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's synthesis to take statistics from reliable sources, put the numbers in a table, sort the table by number, then state in prose which airline is at the top of the table. Ascribing any meaning to or cause of that position on the table which is not explicitly stated in a reliable source would, of course, be synthesis. However, excessive analysis and discussion is certainly not one of this article's shortcomings; quite the reverse, in fact.

What I think this article does a terrible job of doing is explaining what all the data are. (That said, as is often the case with statistics in airline and airport articles, it's practically very different to maintain, as typically-anonymous editors frequently come in and update the latest statistics, sometimes with sources and sometimes not and often for only one airline at a time, and reorder the table accordingly.) —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 20:49, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

You can't have a Wikipedia article about the world's largest airlines without a single reference to such a list in some other sort of media. What's more, I've just encountered a whole bunch of other unsourced claims in various airline articles. For example, at Lufthansa one can read the (unsourced) claim that it would be the world's forth largest carrier. Perfidiously, by adding a Wikilink to World's largest airlines, it is implied that the reference is found there—but it just isn't. You can't use a Wikipedia list as a reference for some other Wikipedia article. External sources are of vital importance.--FoxyOrange (talk) 21:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Obviously any Wikipedia article is not a reliable source. That doesn't mean that, on this article, we can't have a list of properly-sourced airline sizes by various measures and then sort the table. (I don't think anyone's arguing that this article is well-sourced as it stands.) Problems with other articles are not the topic of discussion here.

In fact, copying lists in their entirety from other sources, as you seem to be suggesting, would arguably be a copyright violation. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, I think the sourcing here is pretty good. Check the destinations list, for example. It's a consistent list from a handful of sources, namely the Alliance sites and a few official press releases for expanding airlines. The fleet size cites are also pretty solid.

Where we run into trouble are the passenger-kilometers sections, and that's the result of our definition of an airline, which I actually think we need to change. That data will be easy and consistent if we separate out the conglomerate airlines.71.194.131.107 (talk) 04:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

And as a side note to the above, this page is MILES ahead of where it was two years ago. We have entrenched and refocused, and I think we are within reach of a consistent, reliable page.71.194.131.107 (talk) 04:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Airline groups are not airlines

I know the same old arguments but we still have a problem that airline groups are not actually airlines which makes this page misleading and perhaps a change of name to the World's largest airline groups who be more accurate. MilborneOne (talk) 18:24, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:World's largest airlines/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: ColonelHenry (talk · contribs) 17:53, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I will review this article.--ColonelHenry (talk) 17:53, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Why I fail this article as a GA

Per Wikipedia:GACR#What cannot be a good article?, this article isn't an article. It is a stand-alone list of different datasets for determining varying definitions of "world's largest airline". With a slight format revamping, this article could be appropriate as a Featured List nomination. Given the nature of the article, it is not eligible for GA consideration. I would encourage you and other editors involved to review the Featured List criteria as a guide toward improving the article in that direction. --ColonelHenry (talk) 18:17, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Cargo Airlines (TNT Express - UPS)

Pretty soon some figures might need to change... as UPS is trying to buy TNT Express (merger perhaps) So take note of this — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.160.118.126 (talk) 09:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

American Airlines Merger

Shouldn't American Airllines and US Airways be considered as one airline after their successful merger? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.0.33 (talk) 20:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I would wait with that until AA incorporates every AWE aircraft. FonEengIneeR7 ^talk 20:37, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Until very recently, AA and U.S. Air were operating as two separate airlines owned by the same parent. However, as of a few days ago, they are now officially operating as one airline (under one air carrier certificate.) That said, this page will probably need to wait until 2015 statistics become available to list them together. As of the end of 2014, they were still operating as separate airlines that just happened to have the same owners. Vbscript2 (talk) 05:57, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

What does "by passengers carried" mean?

Does it mean

1. Unique passengers carried? (so if I fly United Airlines in January and December of the same year, I'm only counted once, but if my wife takes my place for the December flight, we're counted twice)?
2. Tickets sold? (so if I buy one return ticket I'm counted once, but if I buy two one-ways for the same journey, I'm counted twice)?
3. Passenger-takeoffs (so if I take a nonstop flight, I'm counted once, but if I take a direct flight that makes an intermediate stop for refuelling only, I'm counted twice)?
4. Passenger-direct-flights (so if I take a direct flight that makes an intermediate stop, I'm counted once, but if I have to change to a different flight number on the same airline at the intermediate stop, I'm counted twice)?
5. Passenger-journeys (so if I have to change flights to the same airline I'm counted once, but if I change to a different airline, I'm counted twice -- once for each airline)?
6. something else?

Grover cleveland (talk) 19:53, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Answering my own question: The source for AA lists "emplanements". The source for Delta lists "passengers boarded". Lutfhansa's report just says "passengers" without further explanation. EasyJet explains that "passengers" means "number of earned seats flown", including no-shows. I'll add this information to main article.

AA Fleet Size

The American Airlines fleet size is wrong according to the citation provided. I have changed the figure to reflect the number in the citation. If this is somehow wrong, please correct and provide appropriate citation. Thanks, ask123 (talk) 16:54, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Scratch that, I see it includes US Airways and American Eagle. Given this, citations for those figures need to be added. Thanks, ask123 (talk) 16:57, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

using IATA's WATS numbers

Given the current numbers are aggregated from individual airlines, using uncertain methodologies, they aren't very reliable and are borderline WP:OR. IATA's annual World Air Transport Statistics (WATS) are from a secondary, as reliable as you could hope source, and hopefully more consistent. As noted above, they are for individual airlines (the article title) with a single AOC, not groups. Numbers from WATS are available to 2014 from 2011 through archive.org, and include Scheduled Passengers Carried, Scheduled Passenger - Kilometres Flown and Scheduled Freight Tonne - Kilometres. I replaced the list compilations by these with the source. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:16, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this. Much of airline statistics reported on Wikipedia in general are borderline original research. —Alex (Ashill | talk | contribs) 14:40, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Somebody seems to be screwing numbers here. I just checked one number, By scheduled passenger-miles flown (millions) should include Emirates as number 3.Jochum (talk) 22:49, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Destinations.

Destinations count is totally wrong. Turkish Airlines is flying to most countries. Please check. It seems Emirates paid for this junk news. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.251.121.4 (talk) 20:47, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

World largest airlines is the title and seems to be the wrong title

If the lemma world largest airlines is used, than the article should reflect that lemma.

Arbitrary leaving one government owned airline out, while leaving other government owned airlines in the list is strange. If the definition is largest public owned airlines, than the lemma should reflect that and than all government owned airlines would ineligible.Jochum (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

The numbers seem to be skewed

The first list sorting the companies according to revenue is referring to Forbes 2000 largest public companies. But the ranking and numbers are quite different from what one gets displayed if one follows that link. I went here to get some information, but the information is that screwed here, that one leaves in a hurry. If I had more time now, I would correct the numbers.Jochum (talk) 22:45, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

single source

I'm not sure everybody understands the need to have a single source to make meaningful comparisons : picking numbers everywhere is WP:OR. If not, apples vs oranges. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 14:45, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

First of each list?

[in response to me reverting an ANA 787 pic in "#By airline companies revenue" with this edit summary : "the point of pictures is to show the first of each list, not everyone, too cluttered unless"] Well but in the current state the selected aircraft pictures mostly do not reflect the first company of each list.--Joobo (talk) 14:54, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

right now the pics are AA (largest by fleet size, revenue, profit, pax and RPK) and Lufthansa (largest by number of employees), Delta (by assets value and market cap), FedEx (by freight) Southwest (largest by pax carried after the already pictured AA) Ryanair (by international pax) Turkish Airlines (number of countries). I just replaced United by Ryanair to reflect that, and put explicit legends.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 17:18, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I removed southwest also--Marc Lacoste (talk) 17:31, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Rename

Should we rename the article to the World's largest airline groups as most of the entries are holding companies or groups and not actually airlines ? MilborneOne (talk) 15:10, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

only the first #By airline companies revenue, not the following #, referenced by iata or flight, which appear to be by AOC--Marc Lacoste (talk) 22:18, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Profit Figures

Where are the profit figures from? In this source I see The Guardian saying Ryanair has a profit of €1.3bn in the 2016 financial year, but it's not on this list.[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Multikev (talk • contribs) 14:43, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

There is a ref: Forbes, it's the top 10 by revenue.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 17:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

implying chinese airlines are not state owned

There is a note about emirates not being in the list because it is state owned. Does this falsely imply the chinese airlines are not state owned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr soros (talk • contribs) 08:45, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Emirates is a private company, not listed publicly, and thus not listed by Forbes. Chinese airlines are public companies listed by Forbes, although the Chinese gov. may own a majority stake, see their respective articles for details.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 12:53, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

American Airlines serves second most international destinations

American Airlines flies to 96 international destinations. Should be in second place

there is no list by international destinations.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 19:16, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

The airline industry is very dynamic. The number of aircraft in the fleet should be kept up to date with reliable sources.

When you look at the "BY FLEET SIZE" section, the number of aircraft in the fleet is listed by referencing an unreliable source and the author. It is known that American Airlines has a fleet of about 1000 aircraft, but it was listed as 1400? Why and where is this information?? How sure are you of the accuracy of this article? If you read the article seriously, you would understand that they are not the current fleet size, but the goals/dreams that companies want to achieve in the long run. In addition, Turkish Airlines' Fleet has reached 404 aircraft as of March 2023, but it was not included in the list because the said source did not include it. WHY? Tayyareci Bey (talk) 02:02, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome to provide a better source. Meanwhile, please remember the commented note in the wikitext: editor beware: avoid WP:SYNTHESIS, it is WP:original research. If you want to update this list, you have to find a WP:reliable source listing each fleet at the same time, not compiling different data from different times from various sources including unreliable ones. Thanks.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 14:46, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Fleet size

I have added the Ryanair Group fleet size to the list, using their corporate website as a source. We could also use their latest annual company report.

@Marc Lacoste: says that lists must have a single source, otherwise they are Original Research. This is incorrect. The policy says that "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge."

We previously had a situation where a low quality source was making an unambiguously false claim, that China Southern is the 6th largest airline in the world. Any reader with the Ryanair source can easily verify this is not true, that Ryanair has over 500 planes. cagliost (talk) 07:42, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

There is a comment stating editor beware: avoid WP:SYNTHESIS, it is WP:original research. If you want to update this list, you have to find a WP:reliable source listing each fleet at the same time, not compiling different data from different times from various sources including unreliable ones. I'm not fond of the current source either, but at least it's not synthesis. You're welcome to provide a reliable source listing fleet numbers for the largest airlines, maybe FlightGlobal or AviationWeek can provide them, but avoid synthesis. Thanks.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 09:04, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

This is not Original Research. The policy says "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source", which I am not doing.

The policy also says "Editors should not compare statistics from sources that use different methodologies." Simply listing fleet sizes, which are verifiable exactly, is not doing this.

Finally, Wikipedia policies should not be used to defend publishing verifiably false information. cagliost (talk) 12:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

It is. Ryanair's report does not state fleet numbers for other airlines. Methodologies differs from different sources, eg one uses 1 AOC, anohter an airline group; one lists all planes, another only those airworthy, and of course the date is not always the same, and so on. Synthesis have to be avoided. A single source is the only way. See Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 14:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Listing by daily flights

I have recently discovered a source [3] that lists largest airlines by the number of daily flights. I just don't know if such criteria has merit to be listed, although it would compliment the contentious categories of fleet size / destinations served that both have lesser quality sources . Respublik (talk) 15:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

By passengers carried#Airlines section

How should we go about updating this section, given that the dynamic graphs remain inactive? In the past year one could notice some referenced sources being completly taken down, even after they had been hidden behind multiple access bariers. This might compromise ability to access some non-synthesized past data. Respublik (talk) 22:42, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Section reorganization, and regarding #Airline capacity

After reorganizing the article into four main sections, which I believe best summarizes the various metrics and aids in navigation, I suggest the subsection "Airline capacity" under "By fleet size" to be renamed "Seat capacity" and moved under "By flight volume", since the title is ambiguous as it is not a statistic of physical aircrafts alone but a product of that and flights operated. The source itself confirms that it is scheduled seat capacity that is being referred to. jchl97 (talk) 08:15, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately this has a number of problems, mainly the Brand value not being related to the financial performance, and the "flight volume" meaning the number of flights and not relating to the other topics. Respublik (talk) 08:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I believe, given that I cannot for the life of me find an updated version, (or any version aside from the outdated source listed) of airlines by annual passenger capacity that the subsection "Airline capacity" should be removed. If I am completely off base for suggesting this please let me know, just trying to figure out whats best for the article and removing outdated subsections which have no other sources on the internet seems like a pretty good step in the right direction? TortillaTom (talk) 06:46, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks - that is a good idea. Until we have a better/more direct source this statistic is a bit misleading to begin with. If it's listed under fleet size, sure we can tally up the physical seat numbers by brute force (borderline original research), but it doesn't make much sense considering scheduled seat capacity (how much the planes are utilized) is the more important metric. jchl97 (talk) 07:23, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal. Initially it featured monthly statistics but was later replaced with an annual list based on a published source. It could be re-updated to a monthly format, similar to the other sections.

Moreover, it is premature to anticipate a list for 2023 being out. Wikipedia is not a real-time information provider. Respublik (talk) 16:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

American is the largest airline in the world and has the most planes

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/largest-airlines/ 32.142.50.118 (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Paywalls

With the release of 2023 data, it appears that all the remaining linked sources have followed IATA's lead by placing their reports, including links leading to historic reports, behind a paywall. I've felt uneasy about adhering to Wikipedia's guidelines to directly link access to these reports for a while now, precisely because of the risk of this scenario, and it now seems to have come to pass. Respublik (talk) 15:39, 2 September 2024 (UTC)