According to OAG aviation analysts, for the first time in history, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport was named the busiest international airport in the world.
As Europe opened for the summer season, the Dutch airport took first place in August, ahead of the previous number one, Dubai. The hub in the United Arab Emirates fell to second place.
OAG measures the planned capacity in any particular month. In August, Schiphol had 2,511,321 seats and Dubai 2,312,381.
European airports have overtaken most of the top 10 as tourism has begun to recover despite the ongoing pandemic. The largest increase was Antalya in Turkey, which is in 10th place compared to 30 in August 2019. The OAG said: “Antalya is a popular coastal resort in southern Turkey, and just over two-thirds of its international market is in the Russian Federation and Germany.”
As for airports that used both domestic and international flights, the busiest in the world during the month was Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta with a capacity of 4.6 million seats, ahead of other hubs in the US, Dallas / Fort Worth and Denver .
OAG also tested the most popular routes and the three busiest international airlines that start or end in the Russian Federation – Simferopol-Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Moscow-Domodedovo-Simferopol and Antalya-Moscow-Sheremetyevo. Simferopol is located in the Crimea, which Russia annexed in Ukraine.
Just a return to the top 10 is a transatlantic route from New York to London. Before the pandemic, it was called “the only air route in the world worth a billion dollars.” Now it operates only 40% of the capacity that operated in August 2019.
The busiest international airports in the world
(In parentheses rating for August 2019)
- Amsterdam, Netherlands (5)
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates (1)
- Frankfurt, Germany (7)
- Paris, Charles-de-Gaulle, France (4)
- Istanbul, Turkey (9)
- Doha, Qatar (15)
- London, Heathrow, United Kingdom (2)
- Madrid, Spain (13)
- Palma, Spain (25)
- Antalya, Turkey (30)