Things have changed since 2019.

When we talk about aviation recovery since COVID-19, we often talk about air travel returning to where it was. This week, we take a look at the new growth that has come since.

Over 4,000 new city pairs are now served daily in April 2025 that were not served in April 2019. When we consider only those with greater than 100 seats, the number drops just shy of 3,000.

Even when we take out major new airport projects such as Tianfu airport in Chengdu, Daxing airport in Beijing, Brandenburg airport in Berlin, and Felipe Angeles airport in Mexico City, 2,400 new daily routes have appeared since 2019.

Chengdu, Beijing, and Berlin Brandenburg top the list of seats to new destinations, something that should come as no surprise given their (near) nonexistent status in 2019. IST finds the number five spot, having been in transition from Atatürk Airport in 2019 to the new Havalimani airport but keeping the same IST code.

Doha’s airport provides striking strength as Qatar Airways continues to add new destinations. Considering this chart measures seats and not ASKs, Qatar’s growth into new destinations is even more impressive.

From an airline perspective, the new routes have been dominated by China and the new airport in Beijing and Chengdu. IndiGo has also benefited from the new Manhoar airport in Goa, but continues to add routes to, well, pretty much everywhere.

An unexpected top performer in North America is Southwest. The airline has added many new markets since 2019, including major competitive hub markets of ORD and IAH.

Equally as surprising is the two remaining North American airlines on the list, and the one expected that does not appear. Both Delta and American have cracked the top 20 for seats deployed on new routes not served by anybody, but United has not.

Despite the mad rush to add capacity by United, the airline still has added far more seats to existing markets than new. Even new services announced by the airline are more typically on routes served by other airlines. Still, the airline only missed the top 20 by a hair as it added 8.5 million seats to new destinations, placing it in the 21st position.

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