World's busiest airports: Atlanta is first overall, Dubai enters top five
It is a real U.S. domination that results in the ranking of the world's busiest airports during [...]
DXB
It is a real U.S. domination that results in the ranking of the world's busiest airports during 2022. The report, compiled by Airports Council International (Aci World) which represents and examined data from 2,600 airports in more than 180 countries, crowns Atlanta and sees Dubai enter the top five. There is also room in the ranking for London Heathrow, Paris, Madrid.
In this article:
The Asian gap and the chaos in Europe
Because during 2022 the most of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region were still subject to restrictions and closures to tourism (especially the largest market, namely the China) due to the long wave of the pandemic.
In the United States, however, there has been a lot of flying both domestically and continentally. And from November 2021, with the reopening of the Use to tourist travel there has been a real surge in connections to Europe as well.
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Similarly, the old continent and its major hubs experienced a 2022 of very strong recovery that also caused huge inconveniences in the spring and during the summer of last year, with the so-called Airmageddon which involved major airports Amsterdam, London, Paris, and Frankfurt and found both airlines and airport operators unprepared.
U.S. dominance
As a result, the ranking is a bit out of sync with the past, but we have become accustomed in recent years (since 2020) to seeing rankings, awards, numbers totally overturned because of the very measures imposed by the pandemic.
Finally, it is worth noting that Aci World's data took into account the following. all departing or arriving passengers at a particular airport; while passengers in transit Were counted only once.
In the top five of the world rankings for number of passengers carried in 2022 are as many as four U.S. airports: Atlanta (Delta Air Lines hub) remains in first place (over 93 million travelers) followed by Dallas (73 million and American's hub), Denver and Chicago (with about 69 and 68 million pax, respectively).
Aci World reports that in the top 20 positions of the ranking, ten airports are in the United States; which, however, benefited from a significant share of domestic passengers (between 75% and 95%).
London and Paris in the top ten
In 2021 the fifth place was occupied by another U.S. airport - Los Angeles - which this time was undermined by Dubai which made a huge leap forward (from 27th place to 5th with an increase of 127% over 2021).
The international airport of Los Angeles thus fell to sixth place, followed by the new airport in Istanbul which recovered seven positions (from 14th to 7th place with 64 million passengers). The top ten closes with London Heathrow (Europe's first airport with 61 million pax), New Delhi and Paris Charles de Gaulle (57 million pax for the tenth position).
Fiumicino out of the top 20
Scrolling down the list of the top 20 airports in the world, there is no Italian airport: the only major airport is Rome Fiumicino which, however, "collected" only 29 million passengers. While the number 20 position is occupied by Mexico City with about 46 million pax.
From 11th to 19th position are all North American or European airports with the only exception of Tokyo Haneda (16th place with 50 million passengers). New York Jfk in 11th place with 55 million pax, followed by Las Vegas (52.6 million) and Amsterdam (52.4), then Miami and Madrid with just over 50 million passengers for both.
Orlando, Charlotte and Frankfurt are ranked number 17,18 and 19, respectively. The ranking of the top 20 airports represents, according to Aci World, about the 18% of global passenger traffic (amounting to 1.2 billion passengers).
Who has grown the most
The biggest improvements in the ranking of the top 20 airports came from the four major European hubs themselves (thanks precisely to the easing of travel restrictions initiated just early last year).
London Heathrow rose from 54th position to eighth place, Madrid Barajas jumped from 42nd to 15th place; Frankfurt from 39th to 18th; and Amsterdam Schiphol from 34th to 13th.
