Why the Asia-Pacific region is the next proving ground for connected travel
Asia-Pacific posted the fastest international traffic growth and highest load factors of any region in 2025, with IATA forecasting 3.8% long-term annual growth versus 2.5% for Europe and 2.8% for North America. Yet paradoxically, it’s the only region on earth where the international network actually contracted. According to DOHOP’s latest whitepaper, The Airline Connectivity Opportunity in APAC, airlines lost 1,017 international routes since December 2019, a net loss of 228 airport pairs, with mainland China alone shedding 293 international connections. The culprit isn’t lack of demand but a jammed aircraft pipeline. Order backlogs sit at 17,000 planes (nearly 60% of the active global fleet, versus a historical norm of 30-40%), with a new plane ordered today taking roughly 6.8 years to arrive.
Facing years-long waits for aircraft they can’t get, airlines like Scoot, Citilink, Thai Vietjet and Cebu Pacific are turning to “connected travel” by bookable multi-carrier itineraries that stitch together partner flights without the months of negotiation a full codeshare or interline deal requires. Scoot’s platform reportedly grew to reach over 80 additional destinations without ordering a single new aircraft, while Citilink added 47 destinations across Southeast and South Asia through partnerships with Scoot and Air India Express.
Asia-Pacific now faces the conditions Europe encountered a decade ago with growing demand, constrained fleets, and increasingly concentrated route networks. Traditional pathways to expansion are no longer practical growth strategies, particularly for LCCs in the region. Connected travel sits between organic route launches and legacy interline agreements. It lets airlines combine flights from separate carriers into one bookable itinerary through an AI-enabled infrastructure layer, including defined baggage handling and disruption protection, without the cost, complexity, or long timelines of codeshare or interline partnerships.
This whitepaper examines the market forces reshaping Asia-Pacific networks, the parallels and important differences with Europe, the role of LCCs in the region and how early movers are already using connected travel to restore reach and compete more effectively with global carriers.
- Expand geographic coverage without adding aircraft
- Test and scale new origin-destination pairs in weeks, not years
- Offer structured multi-carrier journeys across borders
- Give secondary airports a stronger commercial proposition to airlines
