THE U.S. may have the world’s largest aviation market, but it’s Asia that rules the skies when it comes to in-demand air routes.

A new survey to identify the planet’s busiest passenger flight routes reveals a list largely made up of Asian destinations, with the 450-km journey from Seoul’s Gimpo Airport to the island of Jeju, off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, coming out on top.

Last year more than 13.4 million people traveled the short haul route from South Korea’s capital city to the idyllic island, dubbed “the Hawaii of Korea.”

The hugely popular journey has an average of 180 scheduled flights each day, or one every eight minutes.

Its nearest rival was the Melbourne Airport to Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport route which transported just over 9 million passengers in 2017, according to the study by U.K.-based aviation network developer Routes.

In total, Asia-Pacific accounted for more than 70 percent of the 100 busiest routes by passenger numbers.

Unsurprisingly, Japan was declared one of the busiest destinations in the world, with three of its domestic flight routes among the most popular — Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport to Tokyo Haneda Airport (8,726,502 passengers,) Fukuoka Airport to Tokyo Haneda and Tokyo Haneda to Okinawa’s Naha Airport.  (SD-Agencies)