Look: Dubai leads top 10 busiest international airports in the world

Going by international seats and frequency of travel, the latest ranking released by OAG (Official Airline Guide) shows that Dubai is home to the ‘Busiest International Airport’ in the world. With over 5 million seats on international routes in December, Dubai International Airport (DXB) has cemented its position as a global travel hub.

When accounting for both domestic and international routes, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL) is the ‘Busiest Global Airport’ with more than 5.1 million seats this month. In 2023, DXB had a total of 57 million seats, while ATL had 61.2 million seats.

LHR or London Heathrow Airport comes second in the ‘International Airports’ ranking with 3.9 million seats. Both DXB and LHR have continued to hold the top two positions on the OAG ranking since 2019. LHR is also the busiest European airport.

Amsterdam Airport (AMS) and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) are the third and fourth on the 2023 list with 37 million and 36.6 million seats respectively. Out of the top 4, Dubai is the only airport that grew in capacity – by 5 per cent – when compared to 2019 levels i.e. pre-pandemic times.

Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) rounds out the top five busiest international airports in 2023 with 36.1 million seats. This airport rose up to the fifth position from eighth in 2022. However, when domestic routes are included, Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND) is the busiest airport in the Asia-Pacific region in 2023 with 52.7 million seats.

Istanbul Airport (IST) in Turkey is at sixth place, with 33.7 million international seats. However, when including domestic seats, IST is the second busiest airport in Europe with 46.4 million seats in 2023 – beating out airports in France, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

The rest of the top 10 on the busiest international airports’ list are made up of European travel hubs including Madrid Adolfo Suarez-Barajas Airport (MAD), Barcelona Airport (BCN), Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO), London Gatwick Airport (LGW), and Munich International Airport (MUC).

When it comes to busiest airline routes, this year’s win goes to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) to Singapore Changi (SIN) with 4.9 million seats. Closely following that is A Middle Eastern-route - Cairo (CAI) to Jeddah (JED) – which had 4.8 million seats in 2023. The Dubai-Riyadh route is at sixth place overall with nearly 4 million seats.