Airports Council International, the trade association of the world’s airports, recently released its annual ranking of the busiest airports in the world.
The United States dominated the list, with half of the airports in the top 10 spread across the country.
Airports Council International’s report noted that despite the increase in the number of passengers, the number of people who traveled in 2022 was still down from pre-Covid pandemic figures in 2019.
Top 10 busiest airports in the world
- Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
- Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
- Denver International Airport (DEN)
- Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD)
- Dubai International Airport (DXB)
- Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
- Istanbul Airport (IST)
- Heathrow Airport (LHR)
- Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL)
- Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG)
Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport topped the list as the world’s busiest airport for the second year in a row. The airport had an increase of 23.8% to 93,699,630 passengers in 2022.
Although the airport was ranked the busiest, its number of passengers in 2022 was still 15% less than in 2019, according to ACI.
The only year that Atlanta hasn’t been the busiest airport in the last four years was 2020 when ATL came in second behind Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in southern China.
Hartsfield-Jackson also serves as the primary hub for Delta Air Lines.
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport came in second on the list with 73.4 million passengers in 2022. The Texas airport saw an increase of 17.5% from 2021 but a 2.3% decrease from 2019.
The airport is the largest hub for American Airlines. DFW is the second-largest airport by land area in the United States after Denver International Airport, according to the Department of Transportation.
DFW is so big that it even has its own post office ZIP code. It occupies more surface area than the entire island of Manhattan in New York, according to NASA.
Denver’s international airport rounded out the top three on the list. The Colorado facility had 69,289,461 passengers in 2022, up 17.8% compared with 2021.
Unlike the top two airports, DEN saw an increase of 0.4% in passengers compared with the pre-pandemic time in 2019. The airport is a major hub for both United Airlines and Frontier Airlines.
Denver International Airport has also been among the top 20 busiest airports in the world every year since 2000, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
DON’T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter!
Take this survey and tell us how you want to take your money and career to the next level.