The world's busiest airports and air travel routes are still down on passenger numbers compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, but have bounced back from previous years.
Hartsfield-Jackson in the US city of Atlanta was the world's busiest airport in 2023, according to scheduling data provider OAG's international flight index.
It has a total airport capacity (domestic and international) of 61 million seats, and reportedly faced chaos and delays over Christmas this year.
Source: SBS News
Tokyo's Haneda airport has 53 million seats, which was the largest jump from the previous year, with 26 per cent more seats, but still a 6 per cent decrease from 2019.
London's Heathrow was in fourth place with a capacity of 49 million seats.
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (US), Denver International Airport (US), Istanbul Airport (Türkiye) and Guangzhou Airport (China) all significantly increased traffic and featured in the 2023 top 10 rankings but not the 2019 top 10 rankings.
Source: SBS News
The busiest flight route in the world is between South Korea's capital Seoul and Jeju, a busy island city off its coastline. While this route had 13.7 million seats in 2023, this was a 21 per cent decrease on pre-pandemic 2019 figures.
Despite seat numbers dropping 12 per cent on the previous year, the route was still the world's busiest by a significant margin.
In Japan, Sapporo to Tokyo and Fukuoka to Tokyo were the world's second and third busiest flight routes with 12 million seats and just over 11 million seats, while Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam was the world's fourth busiest route with just under 11 million seats.
Sydney to Melbourne came in as the fifth busiest route with 9 million seats which was a 14 per cent increase on 2022 figures but a 6 per cent decrease on 2019 figures.
The one-hour flight between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia was the world’s busiest international route this year, followed by Cairo in Egypt to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
