Story highlights
An American city retains its title as the world's busiest passenger airport for another year
In terms of international passengers, Dubai is the world's busiest
Atlanta has done it again, holding off Beijing to retain its title as the world’s busiest passenger airport.
More than 100 million passengers passed though Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International in 2015, a rise of 5.5% over 2014 according to preliminary traffic data released by Airports Council International (ACI).
Atlanta continues to dominate the passenger market because of its location as a major connecting hub and port of entry into North America. It’s within a two-hour flight of 80% of the United States population of more than 300 million people.
Beijing Capital International has long nipped at the heels of Hartsfield-Jackson. In 2017, the Chinese capital’s airport came in second place again with 96 million passengers (a 1.5% increase).
The overall news is also good for the world’s airports.
Worldwide passenger traffic increased 7.5% to 8.3 billion in 2017, one of the strongest growth rates on record.
Worldwide cargo traffic rose 7.7%. The world’s largest air cargo hub remains Hong Kong. The US city of Memphis, Tennessee, took the second spot, followed by Shanghai, China.
While geopolitical unrest, terrorism and physical capacity could become challenges to future growth, “history supports the long-run resiliency of the industry where connecting people, places, cultures and commerce is paramount in the shared mission of the aviation community,” said Angela Gittens, director general of ACI World.
Overall, 2018 aircraft movements totaled 99.9 million, a 3.1% increase.
Rapid growth
The countries to watch are China and India, according to ACI. Their combined passenger traffic represents 34.5% of the global total.
The sixth busiest airport in 2014, it moved to third position in 2015, with total passenger traffic growing by 10.7%.
The second busiest U.S. airport on the list is Chicago O’Hare, which moved from seventh to fourth position in 2015 thanks to growth of 9.8%.
When it comes to aircraft movements, U.S. airports continue to dominate.
Atlanta overtook last year’s leader, Chicago, with 882,497 total takeoffs and landings. Chicago had 875,136.
Coming in at third, Dallas Fort Worth saw 681,244 takeoffs and landings in 2015, followed by Los Angeles, with 655,564, and Beijing with 590,169.
“We’re not the busiest, we’re the most-traveled”
When it comes to public perception, turns out being at the top of the busy list isn’t necessarily a good thing.
In February, Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport announced that it would rather people referred to it as “world’s most-traveled airport.”
General Manager Miguel Southwell told local media that “some really smart marketing people” learned that the word “busy” has a negative connotation.
“So it’s ‘world’s most-traveled,’” Southwell said.
“Please note that we’re no longer using the term ‘the busiest airport.’”