Domestic flight

{{Short description|Commercial airplane flight between airports within a country}}
{{more citations needed|date=September 2016}}
[[File:Airbus A320-214, Lufthansa JP7384058.jpg|thumb|[[Airbus A320]], an aircraft widely used in domestic flights.]]

A '''domestic flight''' is a form of [[commercial flight]] within [[civil aviation]] where the departure and the arrival take place in the same [[country]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&s=domestic+flight&i=0&h=0#c |publisher=WordNet Search 3.0 |title=Domestic flight |accessdate=2010-12-27}}</ref>

Airports serving domestic flights only are known as [[domestic airport]]s.

Domestic flights are generally cheaper and shorter than most [[international flight]]s. Some international flights may be cheaper than domestic ones due to the short distance between the pair of cities in different countries, and also because domestic flights might, in smaller countries, mainly be used by high paying business travellers, while leisure travellers use road or rail domestically.

As far as security checks is concerned, the security check only verifies the traveler's identity.

Domestic flights are the only sector of aviation not exhibiting a global long term growth trend due to many smaller countries increasingly replacing short domestic routes with [[high speed rail]]; that said, most of the [[busiest air routes in the world]] are domestic flights.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.routesonline.com/news/29/breaking-news/286313/busiest-routes-in-the-world-the-top-100/|title=Busiest routes in the world - the top 100|website=Routesonline|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-10-19}}</ref>

Some smaller countries, like [[Singapore]], have no scheduled domestic flights.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Medium-sized countries like the [[Netherlands]] have very few domestic flights; most of them are merely a leg between small regional airports such as [[Groningen Airport Eelde]], [[Maastricht Aachen Airport]] and [[Rotterdam The Hague Airport]] to pick up passengers from various parts of the country before proceeding to international destinations.<ref name="Tongeren"/> In June 2013, Dutch MP [[Liesbeth van Tongeren]] ([[GroenLinks|GreenLeft]], previously [[Greenpeace]] Netherlands director) proposed to prohibit domestic flights in the Netherlands with the argument that they are needlessly inefficient, polluting and expensive, but Environment Secretary [[Wilma Mansveld]] ([[Labour Party (Netherlands)|Labour Party]]) said such a ban would violate EU regulations that allow airlines to fly domestically.<ref name="Tongeren">{{Cite news |url=https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/verbod-binnenlandse-vluchten-onmogelijk~a44d614f/ |title='Verbod binnenlandse vluchten onmogelijk' |work=[[Algemeen Dagblad]] |date=12 June 2013 |accessdate=14 June 2020 |language=nl}}</ref> Some political debaters propose [[short-haul flight ban]]s in a number of countries.

== Largest domestic markets ==

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ millions of seats<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.anna.aero/2018/12/19/domestic-markets-review-2018-india-and-indonesia-overtake-nepal-and-boliva-see-fastest-growth/ |date= 19 Dec 2018 |title= Domestic markets review 2018: India and Indonesia overtake Japan; Nepal and Bolivia see fastest growth |work= Airline Network News & Analysis}}</ref>
! Rank !! Country !! 2018 !! growth
|-
| 1 || [[Aviation in the United States|US]]{{efn|29% of all global domestic capacity}} || 958.1 || 4.4% 
|-
| 2 || [[Civil aviation in China|China]] || 685.1 || 9.8%
|-
| 3 || [[Aviation in India|India]] || 169.9  || 15.7%
|-
| 4 || [[Aviation in Indonesia|Indonesia]] || 148.4 || 4.0%
|-
| 5 || [[Transport in Japan#Airway|Japan]] || 146.5 || 1.0%
|-
| 6 || [[Transport in Brazil#Airports|Brazil]] || 119.6 || 3.4%
|-
| 7 || [[Aviation in Australia|Australia]] || 79.4 || 0.5%
|-
| 8 || [[Transport in Russia#Air transport|Russia]] || 74.9 || 9.8%
|-
| 9 || [[Transportation in Canada#Air transport|Canada]] || 65.6 || 5.2%
|-
| 10 || [[Aviation in Turkey|Turkey]] || 65.1 || 5.2%
|-
| - || [[Transport in the European Union|EU]] (excl. UK& Republic of Ireland)/[[Schengen Area|Schengen]] || - || - |-
|}
{{notelist}}

== See also ==
{{portal|Aviation}}
* [[Airliner]]
* [[Cabotage]]
* [[Commercial aviation]]
* [[Domestic airport]]
* [[International flight]]
* [[Non-stop flight]]
* [[Private aviation]]

==References==

{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Civil aviation]]


{{Aviation-stub}}