The Top 10 Busiest Airports Of 2022

As the end of 2022 nears, it is an excellent time to look at the world's busiest airports this year. Of course, it'll be a few months until the official full-year global passenger statistics are available from Airports Council International and IATA. Until that is available, I look at the 'busiest' regarding flights, seats for sale, and available seat miles. Each measures something different, and each provides a different perspective. For comparison, I've included numbers for 2021 and pre-pandemic 2019.

World's busiest airports: by flights

The top 10 by this measure are as follows, based on OAG data. Not surprisingly, the top seven airports are all within the US, with Atlanta, Denver, and Charlotte all higher ranked than in 2019.

Notice JFK, Delhi, and Istanbul, which are now in the top 10; they were previously much lower. They've replaced Beijing Capital, Frankfurt, and London Heathrow. Not that the 'new entrants' have more flights than before: JFK's services are down by 2% this year versus 2019, Delhi's by 7%, and Amsterdam's by 19%.

Rank	Airport	2022 departing flights	2021 ranking	2019 ranking
1	Atlanta	348,000	1	2
2	Chicago O'Hare	337,000	2	1
3	Dallas Fort Worth	315,000	3	3
4	Denver	296,000	4	5
5	Los Angeles	239,000	6	4
6	Charlotte	227,000	5	7
7	New York JFK	211,000	29	19
8	Delhi	206,000	16	17
9	Istanbul Airport	196,000	30	21
10	Amsterdam	193,000	33	10

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

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World's busiest airports: by seats for sale

Atlanta is first by seat capacity, precisely as you'd expect. But this category has seen much change over 2019. No longer is Beijing Capital in the top 10 (it was second). Nor are Shanghai Pudong, Frankfurt, or Hong Kong. They'll slowly reappear in the coming years.

Notice Denver. It was the world's fourth airport by this metric, up from 21st in 2019, because capacity jumped by 4%. It was the only airport of the global 10 by seats to have grown seats this year, despite the big ranking rises of some others.

Ranking	Airport	2022 departing seats	2021 ranking	2019 ranking
1	Atlanta	54.9 million	1	1
2	Dubai	45.3 million	13	3
3	Dallas Fort Worth	43.3 million	2	13
4	Denver	41.3 million	3	21
5	Chicago O'Hare	41.2 million	5	7
6	Tokyo Haneda	41.1 million	11	4
7	London Heathrow	40.5 million	37	6
8	Los Angeles	39.8 million	6	5
9	Istanbul Airport	39.3 million	19	15
10	Delhi	38.8 million	10	18

Photo: Vytautas Kielaitis I Shutterstock.

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World's busiest airports: by ASMs

ASMs are a standard aviation industry measurement. They mean one seat flown one mile. For example, a 250-seat aircraft flying 1,000 miles would have 250,000 ASMs. It is one way of gauging airline output.

Aircraft size and distance disproportionately influence the results of this measure, as is evident from the top 10 list, with no Atlanta, Dallas, or Denver, despite their vast activity, including routes. Instead, major global airports feature, led by Dubai. Notice how the first five have returned to their pre-pandemic order but that four of the remaining five weren't in the top 10 in 2019.

Ranking	Airport	2022 departing ASMs	2021 ranking	2019 ranking
1	Dubai	107.4 billion	2	1
2	London Heathrow	99.0 billion	8	2
3	Los Angeles	87.7 billion	1	3
4	New York JFK	86.6 billion	3	4
5	Paris CDG	70.8 billion	9	5
6	Doha	66.8 billion	4	13
7	Istanbul Airport	62.5 billion	11	19
8	Frankfurt	61.8 billion	12	10
9	San Francisco	57.9 billion	17	11
10	Chicago O'Hare	57.5 billion	6	16