World’s busiest airport revealed as Heathrow rises to fourth

Las Vegas and Orlando slipped down the top 20, while Seoul Incheon is the fastest-rising entrant

London Heathrow has regained its spot as fourth-busiest airport globally. The latest Airports Council International (ACI) table for passenger numbers in 2023 shows the UK’s biggest hub overtaking Denver, Chicago O’Hare and Istanbul to move from seventh to fourth. With 79.2 million passengers last year, Heathrow is 3 per cent below Dallas-Fort Worth in third place, and 9 per cent down on Dubai in second.

Dubai remains well ahead in terms of international passengers: almost all its almost-87 million travellers are arriving or departing from another country.

But Atlanta, 24 per cent ahead of Heathrow, retains its commanding lead as the only airport in the world with more than 100 million passengers in a year. During 2023, a total of 104.7 people passed through – most of them in transit between US domestic flights.

The Georgia hub is the main base for Delta, the world’s biggest airline by revenue.

Last month Heathrow experienced its busiest day ever, with more than 268,000 passengers passing through on 30 June. Its year-on-year passenger figure is 81.9 million for the 12 months from July 2023.

Domestically, the UK is the third most popular country by passenger volumes at Heathrow, behind the US and Germany. Heathrow-Edinburgh alone reached 1.1m passengers in 2023.

In the table, Heathrow is just ahead of a host of other big airports: Tokyo Haneda, Denver, Istanbul and Los Angeles.

The closest Continental European airport is Paris CDG in ninth place, with 67.4 million. While that was one-sixth better than in 2022 – when Covid was a significant factor – the number is likely to be hit by international travellers avoiding the French capital during the 2024 Olympics.

Amsterdam Schiphol is 14th with 61.9 million, fractionally ahead of Madrid and Frankfurt.

The final four of the top 20 are interesting. Singapore has bounced back from 36th place in 2022 to 17th last year – one better than it did in the corresponding table in 2019.

America’s two key “fun” destinations both slipped back, Las Vegas from 12th to 19th and Orlando from 17th to 18th.

Star performer, though, is Seoul Incheon – rising from 99th in 2022 to 20th, more than trebling the number of passengers carried as Asian traffic recovered from the pandemic slump.

Full table from Airports Council International

Top 20 airports by passenger numbers, 2023 (ACI)