I've used 23 of these airports before. Though when I can I prefer to drive. Atlanta, Heathrow, Haneda (and Narita), O'Hare, LAX, Dubai (and Sharjah), Paris, Hong Kong, Changi (best airport in the world), Amsterdam, Denver (layover only), Bangkok, JFK, San Francisco, Charlotte (layover), Seoul (Incheon and the smaller one actually in Seoul), Houston, Delhi, Gatwick (I think, maybe it was Stansted), Orlando, SeaTac, and Manila (all 4 terminals! Some are better than others. :P).
Wow I flew to/from 10 of them, quite a lot considering I don't fly much around the world: LAX, JFK, Denver, Dallas, Madrid, Barcelona, Heathrow&Gatwick, Frankfurt, Moscow. And a visit to Istanbul airport.
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.
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 :-)
^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.
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.
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.)!
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.
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.)
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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.
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)
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.
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
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.
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.
Just Sheremetyevo alone was 40,000,000 in 2017.
Chengdu
Xian
Kumning
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)