The Asia-Pacific region has overtaken North America as the world's largest air travel market with 647 million passengers in 2009 as against 638 million people flew in North America last year. This was disclosed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) today at an aviation business conference on the eve of the Singapore Airshow featuring the world's leading aviation industry players. IATA said, within Asia, China has eclipsed Japan over the past decade as the region's largest domestic market with 1400 aircraft compared with Japan's 540 and 5.7 million weekly seats against 2.6 million in Japan.