Originally Posted by Unimatrix One

Well, yes, but by raw passenger count, Southwest is the world's largest airline and Ryanair is the largest European airline (LOL).

As most industry watchers will agree, revenue passenger miles/kilometers is generally considered the best measure of airline size. I wonder how JAL and ANA stack up in terms of RPMs?

Originally Posted by joejones

ANA had about 57.5 billion RPKs in FYE March 2009, and JAL had 83.5 -- so yes, a considerable difference. JAL's international operation is about twice as "big" in terms of the number of seats sold.

Passenger numbers for the same period were 49.1 million and 52.9 million respectively.