Major hub named the 'world's busiest airport' for a record 27th time
The world's busiest airport rankings for 2025 are out.
Global air traffic last year showed significant growth, and the number one airport held onto its longstanding title.
But 2026 has introduced more uncertainty for air travel.
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Atlanta's main airport is one of the biggest and busiest in the world. Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images/File
Total passengers are estimated to come in globally at 9.8 billion in 2025, according to preliminary figures released Tuesday by Airports Council International. That's up 3.6 per cent from 2024 and marks a gain of 7.3 per cent from pre-pandemic 2019 figures.
ACI, an industry federation representing more than 2,200 airports in 181 countries, will finalise traffic tallies in July.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the Delta Air Lines hub in Georgia's capital city, is once again number one in the world for passenger traffic, with a whopping 106.3 million passengers using the airport in 2025.
While that's an impressive number, it does represent a 1.6 per cent decline from the 2024 total and a nearly 4 per cent dip from 2019.
The Atlanta airport has held the world's busiest airport title for 27 of the last 28 years, slipping just once in 2020 when air travel cratered during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Dubai's main airport may not rank as highly next year. Supplied
Dubai International Airport held onto the number two slot for the third consecutive year. And Tokyo's Haneda Airport jumped up one slot to take the number three ranking in 2025. Dallas Fort Worth (number four) and Shanghai Pudong (number five) round out the top five.
"Generally we've seen growth in all regions, and it was really bolstered and fueled by international traffic," Justin Erbacci, director general of ACI World, told CNN Travel, noting that traffic in the United States has recently flattened somewhat after some very robust years of growth.
While traffic at the world's airports was strong, a variety of factors at play last year - including geopolitics and a fragile global economy - are big unknowns in how air traffic will stack up in 2026.
Dubai Airport, which holds the number one ranking in a separate top 10 for international passengers, has suffered from major operational disruptions in 2026 since the start of the Middle East war, alongside other airports.
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Tokyo's Haneda airport even has its own onsen for passengers. Haneda Airport
It's still too early to tell exactly how deeply the war and global uncertainty will impact air traffic, Erbacci said. But the longer conflict in the Middle East drags on, the wider the impacts could be.
Right now, increases in the price of fuel are resulting in higher fares around the world and passengers have found "alternative routings," he said, to bypass places that have experienced recent operational disruptions, including Dubai.
The supply of fuel is a bigger concern to Erbacci.
"If it goes much longer, we will start to see pressures on actual availability of fuel, which could impact the routes that airlines decide to fly," Erbacci told CNN Travel in an interview early last week, just prior to the announcement of a cease-fire, which may not prove durable.
"If the crisis continues for several months yet, that's going to also impact the global economy and inflation and that may or may not impact people's propensity to fly, or where they fly, or how they fly," Erbacci said.
Dallas Fort Worth is a popular airport for Australians heading to the USA. Getty
For now, the desire to travel remains strong, he said. ACI expects to see the strongest growth going forward in regions including Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, with less significant but sustained growth in North America and Europe.
ACI sees "growth continuing, and a robust industry, notwithstanding geopolitical issues and how they may alter the impact, which none of us can really understand at this point," Erbacci said.
World's top 10 busiest airports for passenger traffic in 2025:
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (ATL): 106.3 million passengers; down 1.6% from 2024
- Dubai (DBX): 95.2 million passengers; up 3.1%
- Tokyo Haneda (HND): 91.7 million passengers; up 6.7%
- Dallas Fort Worth (DFW): 85.7 million passengers; down 2.5%
- Shanghai Pudong (PVG): 85 million passengers; up 10.7%
- Chicago O'Hare (ORD): 84.8 million passengers; up 6%
- London Heathrow (LHR): 84.5 million passengers; up 0.7%
- Istanbul (IST): 84.4 million passengers; up 5.5%
- Guangzhou Baiyun (CAN): 83.6 million passengers; up 9.5%
- Denver International (DEN): 82.4 million passengers; up 0.1%
