Airports Council International (ACI World) has published its latest World Airport Traffic Dataset, confirming passenger traffic and the busiest airports for 2022.
Atlanta International retained top spot in the rankings, with US airports filling five of the top ten places.
Heathrow airport saw the biggest rise in passenger traffic between 2021 and 2022, moving from 54th to 8th place in the rankings as the UK’s Covid-19 travel restrictions were relaxed.
Other significant movers included Paris CDG (up from 31st place in 2021, to 10th in 2022), and Dubai International (up from 27th place to 5th).
Global passenger traffic surpassed 6.6 billion last year, up 43.8 per cent on 2021, and representing 72.5 per cent of pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
Last month the International Air Transport Association (IATA) published its revised outlook forecasting that 4.35 billion individual people will fly in 2023, not far off the 4.54 billion people who took a flight in 2019.
Commenting on the news ACI world director general Luis Felipe de Oliveira said:
“In the face of cost pressures and tight labour markets, the world’s airports continue to serve the public’s thirst to travel by air. Airports have once more proven their resiliency as reflected in the key findings from the ACI World Airport Traffic Dataset.
“As always, reliable data remains fundamental to our advocacy and development of timely airport guidance.
“Airports and aviation stakeholders must continue to focus wholeheartedly on building a safe, secure, efficient, and environmentally sustainable air transport system fit to welcome the doubling of passengers that will travel through our doors in the next two decades.”
