World's Busiest Airports

Can you name the cities that are served by the world's 50 busiest airports?

Based on # passengers, 2023. Source.

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Last updated: June 11, 2024

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First submitted	August 20, 2012
Times taken	177,146
Average score	66.0%
Rating	4.89

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#	City
105 m	Atlanta
87.0 m	Dubai
81.8 m	Dallas
79.2 m	London (Heathrow)
78.7 m	Tokyo (Haneda)
77.8 m	Denver
76.0 m	Istanbul
75.1 m	Los Angeles
73.9 m	Chicago
72.2 m	Delhi
67.4 m	Paris
63.2 m	Guangzhou
62.5 m	New York (JFK)
61.9 m	Amsterdam
60.2 m	Madrid
59.4 m	Frankfurt
58.9 m	Singapore

#	City
57.7 m	Orlando
57.7 m	Las Vegas
56.2 m	Seoul
54.5 m	Shanghai (Pudong)
53.4 m	Charlotte
52.9 m	Beijing
52.7 m	Shenzhen
52.3 m	Miami
51.7 m	Bangkok
51.6 m	Mumbai
50.9 m	Seattle
50.2 m	San Francisco
49.9 m	Barcelona
49.1 m	New York (Newark)
49.1 m	Jakarta
48.7 m	Phoenix
48.4 m	Mexico City

#	City
47.2 m	Kuala Lumpur
46.2 m	Houston
45.9 m	Doha
45.3 m	Manila
44.8 m	Chengdu
44.8 m	Toronto
44.7 m	Chongqing
42.9 m	Jeddah
42.5 m	Shanghai (Hongqiao)
42.1 m	Kunming
41.4 m	Xi'an
41.3 m	São Paulo
41.2 m	Hangzhou
40.9 m	London (Gatwick)
40.9 m	Boston
40.7 m	Ho Chi Minh City

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105 Recent Comments

Level 59

Mar 8, 2015

Can someone tell me why Atlanta is so busy? Like what's so important about Georgia?

+24

Level 47

Mar 8, 2015

Atlanta is the main hub airport for Delta, which is the second largest airline in the world (haven been overtaken recently by American Airlines when it merged with US Airways). It is situated between the the North East, Texas and Florida which together account for about a third of the United States' population. As a result, Delta often uses Atlanta for lay overs for many of its domestic and international passengers. It's also why airports such as Charlotte and Denver have such busy airports compared to their city sizes - they're used as hubs.

+12

Level 74

Nov 13, 2015

Sometimes it almost seems as though one cannot fly anywhere in the US without a layover in Atlanta.

+30

Level ∞

Nov 13, 2015

Unless your final destination is Atlanta. Then you'll have to connect in Phoenix.

Level 55

Nov 15, 2015

^ Haha! Ain't it the truth.

Level 58

Dec 8, 2017

I was going to ask the same thing. From a British perspective, we generally catch flights to the US via NY, LAX, Vegas Baby, or Miami (those being the main tourist destinations). I don't think I've ever heard anyone I know fly to or via Atlanta, so it was a bit of a surprise to me how high up Atlanta was. You live and learn :-)

Level 52

Dec 8, 2017

I once had to go from Boston to Pittsburgh but the plane went from Boston to Atlanta, then back to Pittsburgh. Seems a bit unnecessary.

Level 90

Oct 30, 2019

Yeah I live in Virginia and I once took a trip to Naples, Florida. But I had to go to Boston first, then Florida. Airlines are weird.

Level 59

May 15, 2021

don't fly into the Naples Airport, or Tampa for that matter. Miami / Orlando is cheaper and easier to get to.

Level 90

Aug 5, 2024

I always used the one in Fort Myers.

Level 81

Nov 29, 2016

^mostly the hub thing. Also Atlanta is one of the most-visited cities in the United States. There are many business conferences and exhibitions there. And, though it is only the 13th largest city in America, it's still at the center of an urban area of 5.5 million people, and Americans fly a lot.

Level 51

Dec 8, 2017

Lots of things make Atlanta a good place for an airport. It's between eastern Canada and the Caribbean, so layovers happen there often. It's also well-placed for flights from New York and Pennsylvania. It's very large because Atlanta city space isn't at a premium (just look at Macy's), which means more planes can land and take off from there. Atlanta has large suburbs and most of the people who live in them commute to the city, meaning that they are used to noise pollution, so outcry is rare. The city is (relatively) near to other major ones, such as Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, and (though further, still single-flight) Mexico City, Houston, and Austin. And Atlanta lies near numerous favourable air currents, speeding travel in and out (especially the Gulf Stream). None of these things alone makes a good airport, but the combination of them all is what made Hartsfield-Jackson so popular.

Level 72

Dec 8, 2017

Mainly that is has a massive, multi purpose hub for Delta. Atlanta is used for Trans-Atlantic connections, connections to Latin America, connections from the East Coast to Texas and the Southwest, connection from the East Coast to Florida (that's a big one), and direct flights to Atlanta (which is a large market considering tourism and business in a somewhat large metro area). Also, Atlanta has only one airport, compared to New York's seven. Lastly, Atlanta is in close enough proximity to many cities for a short flight (e.g. Charlotte, New Orleans, and touristy places in Florida), but not close enough for a short drive (like between, say, Boston-Bridgeport-New York-etc.)!

Level 81

Jul 22, 2019

Also I heard they have a lovely Hooters

Level 79

Feb 12, 2024

Still going through puberty? I wish you well when you finally hit adulthood.

Level 48

Apr 7, 2015

Hi everyone! Why not trying one of mine? I have the European version... :)

Level 54

Aug 26, 2015

I wonder what the Port Authority has been drinking, or at least what their source I don't understand the absence of some locations like Vancouver and Singapore.

Level 47

Oct 12, 2015

... Singapore is on the list, and Vancouver's Airport is smaller than Moscow (with is 50th)

Level 69

Jun 11, 2016

I suspect that most of the international traffic you'd expect to come in and out of Vancouver is already handled by Seattle, and because their so close, Vancouver just didn't try to replicate it. (Please note, that is just my personal theory, unsubstantiated by actual research.)

Level 83

Dec 8, 2017

Vancouver is around 22 million, still far from top 50

Level 57

Nov 13, 2015

Surprised Phoenix is so high - and I used it 4 times monthly for a couple of years!

Level 74

Nov 13, 2015

I got all but #2 and was wondering what city it could possibly be when I realized I mistyped Beijing.

Level 47

Nov 13, 2015

Don't forget to check out my Worlds busiest airport systems quiz. Looks at each cities combines airport passenger usage rather than just the individual airport.

Level 86

Nov 13, 2015

I only missed Minneapolis, and must have mispelled Sao Paulo because it was not validated though I tried it.

Level 59

Nov 13, 2015

Hi, I'm one of those morons in the 1% who forgot NYC. Derp.

Level 22

Nov 16, 2015

Congrats! I managed to get it ;)

Level 58

Nov 13, 2015

Newark is in NJ not NY.

Level 81

Nov 14, 2015

This isn't about the states that these airports are in, it's about which major cities these airports service.

+16

Level 22

Nov 16, 2015

No Newark is in Nottinghamshire

Level 55

Nov 15, 2015

I was surprised Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro weren't on the list. Anyone know why? (Honest question; the cities are so big I would have assumed they'd have busy airports).

Level 81

Nov 16, 2015

I'm guessing because they're kind of at the southwesternmost edge of the map... there's probably not a lot of transit flights going through either city. I mean, flights that use the airport in Rio or Buenos Aires are probably almost exclusively flights that are terminating in or originating from those cities, as opposed to all of the top answers which are huge hubs of international travel with many millions of people using each airport simply for a layover on their way somewhere else (and also, with the possible exception of Dubai, giant cities in their own right).

Sao Paulo makes the list. But it's urban area population is twice that of Rio or Buenos Aires. If you cut the amount of traffic for Sao Paulo in half for these other cities then obviously they wouldn't be seeing as much traffic as Moscow.

Level 64

Nov 15, 2015

Of course all of the ones I missed are in the US...................................

Level 76

Nov 16, 2015

Where does Mecca come? I would have thought with the constant volume of pilgrims there would be a heap of flights to there.

Level 47

Nov 17, 2015

Mecca is served by Jeddah airport which handles 27 million passengers a year

Level 81

Nov 18, 2015

What relessness said. Mecca has no airport.

Level 92

Nov 18, 2015

Consider accepting St Paul for Minneapolis?

Level 37

Apr 6, 2016

I can never spell Kuala Lumpur...

Level 49

May 16, 2016

how did I miss Paris *facepalm*

Level 31

Jan 17, 2017

I missed London, I kept trying to put Heathrow.

Level 64

Feb 7, 2017

I got Shenzhen but I missed Amsterdam!

Level 39

Mar 29, 2017

*gets Charlotte* *misses Paris*

Level 57

May 25, 2017

Great quiz! Check also my new "Best airports of the World 2016" based on Lonely Planet survey.

Level 35

Jun 11, 2017

Missed a couple of obvious ones, after a while it just became an exercise in naming big cities!

Level 79

Sep 10, 2017

very surprised at exclusion of Moscow and Sao Paolo . . .

Level 83

Dec 8, 2017

Moscow has 3 major airports, actually 3 busiest in Russia, and even so it almost makes the list. Here are the numbers for 2015:

Sheremetyevo 31.6 m

Domodedovo 30.5 m

Vnukovo 15.82 m

There's also Zhukovsky, new airport opened in 2016, with 4 million declared capacity.

Level 83

Dec 8, 2017

And there would've been a lot more without visa issues. St Petersburg is at only 13 million.

Level 54

Dec 15, 2017

Likewise for Sao Paulo - three international airports with a total of over 66 million - the busiest (Guarulhos) at 36.6 million just misses the list.

Level 83

Sep 23, 2017

That moment when you have loads of gaps left, and you suddenly realise you'd forgotten the entirety of Europe...

Level 41

Nov 4, 2017

surely just JFK should be accepted

Level 72

Mar 15, 2020

That isn't a city, read the description before commenting please (which would cut complaints in half, atleast)

Level 51

Dec 8, 2017

Saw an article yesterday about why Abu Dhabi has an F1 Grand Prix but Dubai does not. Wondered why they would both have one (being in the same country) until I say this quiz. It is kind of odd with the knowledge that Dubai has the third-largest airport in the world.

Level 51

Jan 9, 2018

*saw

Level 66

Dec 8, 2017

I knew Chicago wasn't the busiest airport in the world anymore, but I didn't realize it had fallen THAT far.

Level 75

Dec 8, 2017

The Pearl River Delta must have like 200 million combined. Mind blown,

Level 48

Dec 8, 2017

Can someone explain to me why "Canton" worked as an input for Guangzhou?

Level 56

Dec 9, 2017

Canton is an old name for the city of Guangzhou (and also the province of Guangdong).

Level 54

Dec 15, 2017

Which is why the IATA code is "CAN"

Level 81

Dec 11, 2017

Curiously Peking does not work for Beijing.

Level 72

May 22, 2018

41/50, got Kunming as well :D

Level 48

May 28, 2018

40/50 missed quite a lot, like Denver and Seattle...

Level 27

Jul 29, 2018

Moscow has three area airports and served ~76,000,000 in 2016 and ~89,000,000 in 2017. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Russia.

Just Sheremetyevo alone was 40,000,000 in 2017.

Level 81

Jul 22, 2019

I think they were on the quiz previously. But the data used is from 2016 and the answers are single airports not airport systems.

Level 35

Apr 29, 2019

43/50.

Level 72

Jul 22, 2019

I got everything but Phoenix Vegas and Manila

Level 49

Dec 25, 2019

Missed 3 Chinese ones. Good stuff

Chengdu

Xian

Kumning

Level 51

Jan 30, 2020

Got all of them correct!

Level 72

Mar 14, 2020

Did pretty well! Missed kunming (first time I see it), shenzhen chengdu, charlotte, orlando, taipei and las vegas. Could have gotten the last 2 but not the others.

Pretty proud since I hardly typed in any wrong ones (did try 3 big s-american cities, rio, sao pãolo and buenos aires, and another in japan, top 3 africa, a couple of europe and berlin. Think that were most of my wrong guessed)

Level 33

Apr 20, 2020

I just knew Atlanta would be on top. I have been to that airport many times and there is always traffic there. If you are driving on a highway that goes near it like I-85 I-75, or I-285 I swear you will have seen so many planes taking off and landing by the time you have completely passed by it. Also, the TSA line there takes forever. Longest line for TSA I have ever been through.

Level 57

Dec 7, 2020

Its Delta and Americans hub for the US I believe, most of their traffic goes through Atlanta

Level 69

May 17, 2020

Great quiz! Just to say that the source link doesn't seem to work for me.

Level ∞

May 17, 2020

Replaced it with an archive.org link. These quizzes are not going to be updated for awhile since the numbers are going to be very weird until we are done with Covid.

Level 42

Jun 19, 2020

50/50 IM 11

Level 53

Sep 22, 2021

56/50 IM AN UNBORN ALIEN ORGANISM

Level 76

Jun 12, 2024

50/50. I am a 25 billion years old ethereal being.

Level 48

Jul 7, 2020

Sao Paulo?

Level 75

Jan 11, 2021

Well this quiz might have changed a tad over the last year...

Level 59

Jan 16, 2021

I missed Sydney, Amsterdam and Taipei but managed to get Kunming...

Level 62

Mar 30, 2021

I got Kunming but missed Mumbai and Barcelona🤦‍♂️

Level 54

Apr 16, 2021

Had to look up Kunming, is that a layover spot? Apparently it's under 7 million people, so my only other guess is tourist destination. Great quiz though

Level 81

May 15, 2021

Are you from China? Where else in the world would "under 7 million people" not seem like an astronomical number? Atlanta (#1 on the list) only has a metro area of 6 million.

Level 46

Aug 2, 2021

Im Chinese and I flew through Kunming three times both as layover and destination. Yunnan is one of the most popular tourist areas for Chinese people and also China Eastern uses it as a base for Southeast asia as well as many european and middle eastern countries (I was on layover to Dubai my first trip there)

Level 68

Sep 22, 2021

Lol forgot New York.

Level 14

Oct 14, 2021

You got Narita and Haneda mixed up. Narita is the international airport and Haneda is mostly domestic.

Level 44

Jun 14, 2022

dubai :) my city

Level 44

Jul 28, 2022

Considering Newark is an entirely separate city and is known as Newark Liberty International Airport (in New Jersey), I wouldn't put that under New York and I would make it a separate option.

Level 81

Oct 28, 2022

42/50 gives me 4 points and takes me to level 75.

Level 67

Nov 26, 2022

I have a southern hemisphere version of this quiz if anyone is interested : https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/156455/busiest-airports-in-the-southern-hemisphere

Level 66

Dec 3, 2022

Really surprised about Manila

Level 21

Jan 11, 2023

50/50 Still in the womb

Level 62

Oct 27, 2023

If you ever feel stupid: I missed Munich... My hometown.

Level 66

Nov 27, 2023

How did I get everything except Istanbul, Bangkok, and Madrid?????

Level 59

Jun 11, 2024

Just updated it today and I did it...have to say...extremely surprised by all the changes. Moscow falling off the list I understand but Beijing used to be 2nd and where did Hong Kong go!?

Level 75

Jun 12, 2024

If I had to guess, it's because high speed rail has taken a chunk out of the market for domestic and regional flights.

Level ∞

Jun 12, 2024

It was Covid lockdowns.

Level 71

Jun 11, 2024

Beijing and Chengdu has multiple airports. It is better to specify which airport the data refers to.

Level 71

Jun 11, 2024

Got all but 7 - mainly Chinese cities I coudn't spell!

Very surprised that Hong Kong is no longer on this list.

Level 79

Jun 12, 2024

I would've expected Hong Kong to be here!

Level 67

Jun 12, 2024

16 in the USA!

I got about 10 and thought I'd tried so many USA cities, but I was suspicious at missing the top answer... Was sure it would be in Asia somewhere.

Level 67

Jun 12, 2024

The fact that I got all Chinese cities but not Orlando or Las Vegas.

Level 45

Jun 12, 2024

This is a slight nitpick but Chengdu actually has two airports. It would be nice if you can specify that the quiz is referring to Tianfu, and not Shuangliu airport like the other cities on this list.

Level 79

Jun 12, 2024

I think they're only meant to be there when one city has multiple on the list, so I'm assuming Narita has recently fallen off the list and Haneda should now be removed from Tokyo

Level 72

Jun 12, 2024

Hmm. Might be nice to accept Guangzhou and Shenzhen for each other given that they're usually counted as in the same urban area on JetPunk quizzes.

Level 72

Jun 12, 2024

It seems it's quite difficult to make a pleasant large airport. I certainly haven't been to a fraction of the ones on this list, but out of the ones I have flown through (ATL, LHR, HND, DEN, LAX, ORD, CDG, JFK, FRA, MCO, LAS, MIA, SEA, SFO, BCN, EWR, MEX) I only really like anything about SFO and maybe HND, with JFK, FRA and ATL standing out as particularly bad. Mostly due to layout and the inconvenience of changing terminals--what genius stretches terminals out in a line like ATL (so you have to go through a bunch of irrelevant terminals on the airtrain to get to the one you want) or on opposite sides of the field like MEX? Or does whatever the F JFK has going on? At least SEA seems to roughly get multiple discontinuous terminals correct (lousy services though). SFO's squashed 'U' with contra-course circular airtrains seems about optimal, which you can see in contrast with LAX (another 'U') which ruins the idea by making it very long, without easy crossings.

Level 30

Jul 14, 2024

Please combine Shenzhen with guangzhou

Level 39

Aug 5, 2024

Why? There are two entirely different airports in different cities

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