The Largest Airports in the World

Atlanta ranks as the busiest air­port in the world, han­dling a whop­ping 107 mil­lion pas­sen­gers last year, accord­ing to a report from Air­ports Coun­cil Inter­na­tion­al. Pas­sen­ger traf­fic is esti­mat­ed to have reached 8.8 bil­lion in 2018, up from 6 per­cent a year ear­li­er. Despite a wor­ri­some back­drop due to glob­al trade ten­sions, pas­sen­ger traf­fic “remained robust in 2018,” accord­ing to ACI. In fact, in the 20 busiest air­ports in the world, it grew by 4.7 per­cent, with more than 1.5 bil­lion peo­ple pass­ing through it.

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport

Dal­las-Fort Worth Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (DFW) han­dled 69,112,607 pas­sen­gers in 2018 and is cur­rent­ly nego­ti­at­ing the pro­posed con­struc­tion of Ter­mi­nal F. The design is envi­sioned as a semi-cir­cle or cres­cent to help pas­sen­gers nav­i­gate the vast air­port.

Frankfurt airport

For inter­na­tion­al trav­el­ers lost at Frank­furt Air­port, the pres­ence of the new FArny concierge robot will be a pleas­ant sur­prise. The brain­child of Frank­furt air­port oper­a­tor Fra­port AG and DB Sys­tel GmbH: “FRArny is based on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and a cloud-based voice user inter­face.” It receives infor­ma­tion from the air­port’s own infor­ma­tion sys­tem. For the largest avi­a­tion hub in Ger­many, this is an extreme­ly use­ful inven­tion — for sure, one of the 69,510,269 pas­sen­gers need­ed help last year.

Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport

69,769,497 pas­sen­gers passed through Baiyun Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, which makes it a seri­ous com­peti­tor to oth­er major air­ports in Asia. Accord­ing to the South Chi­na Morn­ing Post, the air­port is con­stant­ly expand­ing inter­na­tion­al and region­al ser­vices, and plans to open a new ter­mi­nal by 2025 with a capac­i­ty of 100 mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year.

Indira Gandhi International Airport: Delhi, India

The largest air­port in India is also one of the busiest in the world, with 69,900,938 pas­sen­gers last year. Trav­el­ers can thank Ter­mi­nal 3, which opened in 2010, for this as it improved the air­port’s abil­i­ty to oper­ate inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic flights under one roof.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Ams­ter­dam Air­port Schiphol received 71,053,147 pas­sen­gers last year. KLM is launch­ing flights to Boston three times a week, while easy­Jet is adding sev­er­al new routes such as Verona (three times a week) and Genoa (twice a week). Unit­ed Air­lines will also begin fly­ing to San Fran­cis­co sev­en times a week.

Charles de Gaulle Airport: Paris, France

Charles de Gaulle Air­port with 72,229,723 pas­sen­gers is con­stant­ly expand­ing its range of flights, both inter­na­tion­al and region­al.

Shanghai Pudong International Airport

Shang­hai Pudong Air­port had 74,006,331 pas­sen­gers last year, so it’s no sur­prise that it’s also the fifth busiest air­port in Asia.

Read also about the most dan­ger­ous air­ports in a sep­a­rate selec­tion on Life­Globe.

Hong Kong International Airport

Hong Kong Inter­na­tion­al Air­port has long been regard­ed as a world-class facil­i­ty — after all, it han­dled 74,517,402 pas­sen­gers in 2018. But with an $18 bil­lion invest­ment, it could take it to a whole new lev­el. The T1 addi­tion will include an obser­va­tion deck and a 28-meter sky bridge for the A380 pas­sage, while the new 12-sto­ry build­ing will have addi­tion­al park­ing and recre­ation areas for all air­port staff, as well as a chil­dren’s room for par­ents.

Heathrow Airport: London

Last year, Lon­don Heathrow Air­port was vis­it­ed by 80,126,320 peo­ple. It is the main city cen­ter where most inter­na­tion­al long-haul flights arrive. For­tu­nate­ly, most vis­i­tors have noth­ing to wor­ry about – Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 5 was vot­ed the best in the world at the 2019 Sky­trax World Air­port Awards.

O’Hare International Airport: Chicago

With 83,339,186 pas­sen­gers last year, O’Hare in Chica­go is one of the largest air­ports in the world. It was a big deal when the Chica­go Depart­ment of Avi­a­tion invit­ed the pub­lic to vote on a new $8.5 bil­lion ter­mi­nal project. Stu­dio ORD is the win­ner and plans to start a project that will expand Ter­mi­nal 5 and bring much-need­ed improve­ments to Ter­mi­nals 1, 2 and 3 in 2021.

An inter­est­ing arti­cle — the most unusu­al air­ports in the world.

Haneda Airport: Tokyo, Japan

Hane­da Air­port, which received 87,131,973 pas­sen­gers last year. It has renamed its Inter­na­tion­al Arrivals Ter­mi­nal to Ter­mi­nal 3 to cope with the increase in inter­na­tion­al flights ahead of next year’s Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games. The gov­ern­ment will add about 40,000 inter­na­tion­al slots before events start, and Ter­mi­nal 2 will be renamed to avoid con­fu­sion.

Los Angeles International Airport

The world’s fourth-busiest air­port, with 87,534,384 guests last year, knows its aging facil­i­ties can’t always keep up with the grow­ing traf­fic. There­fore, in prepa­ra­tion for the 2028 Olympics, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of adding “up to two new ter­mi­nals and almost two dozen new gates to help cope with the influx of trav­el­ers is being con­sid­ered. A $1.6 bil­lion new con­course is also under con­struc­tion, while ren­o­va­tions are also under­way at the Amer­i­can, Delta and South­west air­line ter­mi­nals.

Dubai International Airport

The bustling air­port, which wel­comed 89,149,387 pas­sen­gers last year, is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing a much-need­ed facelift. Its south­ern run­way was closed for main­te­nance dur­ing a sea­son­al lull when few­er trav­el­ers pass through. Among the improve­ments on the agen­da: strength­en­ing the run­way and taxi­ways with 60,000 tons of asphalt.

Beijing Capital International Airport (Capital)

The sight­ing of 100,983,290 pas­sen­gers pass­ing through the Bei­jing Cap­i­tal Inter­na­tion­al Air­port like­ly has­tened offi­cials’ plans to launch the new Bei­jing Dax­ing Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. The long-await­ed facil­i­ty aims to alle­vi­ate capac­i­ty issues that often lead to flight delays.

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Atlanta

Harts­field-Jack­son had 107,394,029 pas­sen­gers last year, which is impres­sive by all stan­dards. The air­port is Delta’s main hub and a favorite with low-cost car­ri­ers such as Fron­tier and South­west.