<\/p>\n

There’s something about cruising up to the Jet Blue terminal on the very Disney-like monorail that is the AirTrain at JFK Airport here in New York that makes you feel like you were leaving one city and entering another. A very busy city, at that. Which made me wonder: What is the world’s busiest airport?<\/p>\n

I admit I’ve been a little wonkish lately (perhaps as a result of not being on a recent enough trip), but I have to admit, this question came to me naturally (unlike, say, some recent forays into the number of Swedes that visit Thailand<\/a>, or the number of Alabamians with passports<\/a>). So here it goes.<\/p>\n

The Airports Council International (“ACI”) just reported their numbers for air passenger traffic for 2009. Overall, the number of flyers worldwide actually declined by 2.7% to 4.4 billion, and the number of aircraft movements (takeoff and landings) were down 5.5% to 63.9 million.<\/p>\n

And the busiest airport? Topping the list at #1 was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport<\/strong> with 87,993,451 passengers, followed by London Heathrow Airport<\/strong> at 66,037,578. Rising to #3 in 2009 was Beijing Capital International Airport<\/strong> with 65,329,851 passengers, followed by last year’s third place, Chicago O’Hare International Airport<\/strong> at 64,397,891.<\/p>\n

Here’s the list of the top 30 (in passengers):<\/p>\n

1
\nATLANTA GA, US
\n87,993,451<\/strong><\/p>\n

2
\nLONDON, GB
\n66,037,578<\/strong><\/p>\n

3
\nBEIJING, CN
\n65,329,851<\/strong><\/p>\n

4
\nCHICAGO IL, US
\n64,397,891<\/strong><\/p>\n

5
\nTOKYO, JP
\n61,903,656<\/strong><\/p>\n

6
\nPARIS, FR
\n57,884,954<\/strong><\/p>\n

7
\nLOS ANGELES CA, US
\n56,518,605<\/strong><\/p>\n

8
\nDALLAS\/FORT WORTH TX, US
\n56,030,457<\/strong><\/p>\n

9
\nFRANKFURT, DE
\n50,932,840<\/strong><\/p>\n

10
\nDENVER CO, US
\n50,167,485<\/strong><\/p>\n

11
\nMADRID, ES
\n48,248,890<\/strong><\/p>\n

12
\nNEW YORK NY, US
\n45,912,430<\/strong><\/p>\n

13
\nHONG KONG, HK
\n45,560,888<\/strong><\/p>\n

14
\nAMSTERDAM, NL
\n43,569,553<\/strong><\/p>\n

15
\nDUBAI, AE
\n40,901,752<\/strong><\/p>\n

16
\nBANGKOK, TH
\n40,500,269<\/strong><\/p>\n

17
\nLAS VEGAS NV, US
\n40,460,310<\/strong><\/p>\n

18
\nHOUSTON TX, US
\n39,993,236<\/strong><\/p>\n

19
\nPHOENIX AZ, US
\n37,824,982<\/strong><\/p>\n

20
\nSAN FRANCISCO CA, US
\n37,366,287<\/strong><\/p>\n

21
\nSINGAPORE, SG
\n37,203,978<\/strong><\/p>\n

22
\nGUANGZHOU, CN
\n37,048,550<\/strong><\/p>\n

23
\nJAKARTA, ID
\n36,466,823<\/strong><\/p>\n

24
\nCHARLOTTE NC, US
\n34,577,808<\/strong><\/p>\n

25
\nMIAMI FL, US
\n33,886,025<\/strong><\/p>\n

26
\nORLANDO FL, US
\n33,731,431<\/strong><\/p>\n

27
\nROME, IT
\n33,723,213<\/strong><\/p>\n

28
\nSYDNEY, AU
\n33,444,687<\/strong><\/p>\n

29
\nNEWARK NJ, US
\n33,400,626<\/strong><\/p>\n

30
\nMUNICH, DE
\n32,681,067<\/strong><\/p>\n

ACI’s report can be found here<\/a> (.pdf fomat).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s something about cruising up to the Jet Blue terminal on the very Disney-like monorail that is the AirTrain at JFK Airport here in New York that makes you feel like you were leaving one city and entering another. A very busy city, at that. Which made me wonder: What is the world’s busiest airport? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,2563],"tags":[1423,1425,1424],"yoast_head":"\n