In part two of our special Global Airline Report, Key.Aero analyses data to find out how many airlines were set up and how many departed last year.
Aviation is a difficult business to make work. Many have tried and each year there are a series of startups and unfortunately some failures. In 2019, exactly 102 airlines were setup spread across 63 different countries. The nation with the most amount of startups was the United States which boasted six new entries. This was closely followed by China which was home to five new airlines during 2019.
Notable examples include Wizz Air Abu Dhabi which is due to begin operations from the Middle Eastern country to Europe later next month. Malta Air is another interesting example. The Ryanair Group subsidiary was created during 2019 and has a fleet of 120 Boeing 737-800s which were transferred from its parent organisation last year.