Does anyone know of a list of the top 50 or 100 airlines in the world?

I have been searching round the net for the past few days and surprisingly haven't found any recent data on this topic. The mnost recent list I can find is from about 2002. In terms of measurement, I think RPK is probably the most useful - but anything will do.

Thanks,
MD

The best I found was passenger figures for 2003 :

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworl...r_airlines.htm

Have you tried digging around in ATW Online? It's the online part of the trade magazine Air Transport World, which certainly does these stats every year. I don't know whether you can get any of the stats from the website, but it might be worth a look.

As Globaliser said, ATW is a valuable source, I would suggest in addition looking into Flight International. They usually have an annual review of the state of the global airlines with inventory.

That's a great site souce! ^

That's great - I knew the good folks at Flyertalk would know where to look. Love that ATW site! Interestingly, the Nations Online site uses ATW info in any event.

No, but I would offer to start the list (based on my experiences).
1. Singapore Airlines
2. Lufthansa
3. Air India
4. Swiss-air
5. Emirates
6. JAL
7. Malaysian
8. Varig
9. Asiana
10. Virgin Atlantic

P.S. It will be easier to list the worst airlines.

According to the thread title, the list the OP is looking for is the LARGEST airlines. @:-)

Surely, Qantas rates above Air India? From experience QF and CX are both better than Lufthansa, but I'm with you that SQ is the best overall.

I was under the impression that the biggest airline was AA? Please correct me if I'm misinformed.

Airline Passengers(000)
American Airlines 88,241
Delta Air Lines 84,245
Southwest Airlines 74,787
United Airlines 66,100
Japan Airlines 58,241
Northwest Airlines 51,975
Deutsche Lufthansa 45,400
Air France 43,700
All Nippon Airways 42,251
US Airways 41,263
Continental Airlines 38,903
British Airways 35,132
Qantas Airways 28,884
Iberia 25,097
Korean Air 21,735
Ryanair 21,372
America West Airlines 20,047
Air Canada 20,043
Scandinavian Airlines 19,260
KLM 18,837
EasyJet 18,153
Air China 18,026
Thai Airways 17,301
China Southern 15,564
Malaysia Airlines 15,144
Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air 15,046
Saudi Airlines 14,488

These figures are from 2003, and the airlines with the oldest fleet are as follows;

Northwest's reliance on DC-9s -- the aircraft accounts for more than a third of its 432-plane fleet -- gives it an average plane age of about 18 years, according to data provided by BACK Aviation Solutions of New Haven, Conn. That ties with Aerolineas Argentinas for the oldest fleet among the world's top 60 airlines, according to BACK. By contrast, the average plane age of the other five hub-and-spoke airlines is about 10 years old. Houston-based Continental Airlines Inc., which went on a buying spree in the late 1990s, has a fleet that averages just eight years old.

The OP will want to be careful, though, about using pax numbers on their own because of the very different route structures of different airlines. A few days ago, we had an interesting trawl around BA and FR statistics in this thread.

Pax numbers y/e 31.03.05:-
FR: 27,590,000
BA: 35,717,000

RPKs:-
FR: 23,896m
BA: 107,892m