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Airports can be some of the most crowded and stressed places in the world, with their long lines and busy gates. Even though there are some bad things about commercial air travel, the system as a whole is amazing. The biggest air transit hubs have as many passengers as some large countries.
Using data from Airports Council International (ACI), the above infographic ranks the top 10 busiest airports in the world based on the total number of people who boarded and left planes, with passengers in transit only counted once.
The Most Bustling Airports in 2022
Nearly 7 billion people traveled around the world in 2022, which was almost 54% more than in 2021 and 74% more than before the pandemic.
Here’s a closer look at the data, along with how much each airport has grown from one year to the next:
| Rank | Airport | City | Passengers (2022) | Change vs. 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) | 🇺🇸 Atlanta | 93,699,630 | 24% |
| 2 | Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) | 🇺🇸 Dallas | 73,362,946 | 18% |
| 3 | Denver International Airport (DEN) | 🇺🇸 Denver | 69,286,461 | 18% |
| 4 | Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) | 🇺🇸 Chicago | 68,340,619 | 27% |
| 5 | Dubai International Airport (DXB) | 🇦🇪 Dubai | 66,069,981 | 127% |
| 6 | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) | 🇺🇸 Los Angeles | 65,924,298 | 37% |
| 7 | Istanbul Airport (IST) | 🇹🇷 Istanbul | 64,289,107 | 74% |
| 8 | Heathrow Airport (LHR) | 🇬🇧 London | 61,614,508 | 218% |
| 9 | Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) | 🇮🇳 New Delhi | 59,490,074 | 60% |
| 10 | Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) | 🇫🇷 Paris | 57,474,033 | 119% |
Last year, 10% of all passenger flow in the world went through these 10 airports. The ACI Director General says that half of these airports are in the United States and that most of their growth came from domestic passengers.
The most people went through Atlanta’s airport, which had nearly 94 million, but the most people went through London’s Heathrow airport every year, which was up by over 217%.
In this data set, big percentage increases between 2021 and 2022 are generally caused by COVID-19 restrictions being eased or taken away completely.
How the Travel Industry Sees the Future?
Even though there are a lot of travelers around the world, the travel and tourism business hasn’t quite gotten back to where it was before the pandemic, but it’s getting there. A recent study from the World Travel and Tourism Council found that the industry has recovered to 95% of its market size in 2019.
Jobs also came back to the industry, which added 21.6 million workers by 2022, bringing the total number of jobs in the world to over 295 million, or one in every 11 jobs. Last year, tourists from other countries spent an all-time high of $1.1 trillion. This was a record growth rate of 82%. Overall, it looks good for people who work in travel and tourism.
In fact, spending at many popular travel spots has already topped 2019 numbers, and 34 countries have seen their travel industries return to the amounts they were at before the pandemic.
Even though wars like the one in Ukraine have slowed some of the recovery, recent moves by countries like China to reopen their borders will help the travel and tourism businesses grow.
