Airports Council International (ACI) World has just published its annual World Airport Traffic Dataset, which verifies the ranks of airports throughout the world in terms of their air traffic for the whole year of 2021.
The director general of ACI World, Luis Felipe de Oliveira, said that the year 2021 will mark the beginning of the recovery process for the aviation sector.
“While some of the perennial busiest airport leaders have re-joined the high ranks, other areas struggle to recover, resulting to new entries in the top 20,” the article states.
We welcome the continuation of the recovery in demand for air travel in 2022, despite the fact that there are going to be some headwinds, as a result of the fact that many countries are taking steps toward the return of a certain normality, lifting almost all of the health measures and travel restrictions as supported by science.
Passenger traffic
The world’s airports handled 4.6 billion passengers in 2021, which was an increase of 28.3 percent from the previous year’s total of 2020 but a decrease of 49.5 percent from the results of 2019, respectively. The world’s top 20 airports, which together handle 19 percent of all passenger traffic (863 million), saw either a rise of 42.9 percent from the year 2020 or a fall of 31.9 percent in comparison to their performance from the previous year, 2019. (1.27 billion passengers in 2019).
Airports in the United States take the top three slots. The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is back on top of the rankings with 75.7 million passengers, an increase of 76.4 percent from the previous year. It is followed by Dallas-Fort Worth (62.5 million passengers, an increase of 58.7 percent), and Denver (58.8 million passengers, an increase of 74.4 percent). Domestic passengers make up anything from 65 percent to one hundred percent of a hub’s total passengers in practically every single one of the top 20 hubs. The one and only exception to this rule is Istanbul International Airport, which has a bigger proportion of passengers traveling internationally (72 percent of passenger traffic).
Air cargo
The amount of air freight reached a new high of 125 million metric tonnes in 2021, representing an increase of 15.4 percent year-on-year and 4.5 percent compared to 2019. The amount of air cargo transported via the top 20 airports, which accounted for around 44 percent (54.8 million metric tonnes) of the world’s total volume in 2021, increased by 14.7 percent year-on-year in 2021 and by 13.4 percent compared to 2019. The increase may be accounted for by pointing to the fact that an improvement in the economy has led to a rise in demand for consumer items as well as pharmaceutical products (like safety gear and vaccines).
Memphis (4.5 million metric tonnes, -2.9 percent) inched its way back up to second place, followed by Shanghai (4 million metric tonnes, +8.0 percent) in third place. Hong Kong (5.0 million metric tonnes, +12.5 percent) reclaimed the top spot from Memphis, which fell to second place. The largest improvement in the top 20 rankings was witnessed by Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, which increased its standing by seven spaces, from 18th in 2019 to 11th in 2021. This improvement is compared to the levels that existed before to the pandemic.
Flight maneuvers of aircraft
There will be close to 74 million movements of aircraft throughout the world in 2021, which is an increase of 18.7 percent from the figures of 2020 but a decrease of 28.2 percent compared to 2019. The results of the top 20 airports, which together represent 12 percent of worldwide traffic (8.7 million movements), increased by 27.9 percent compared to their results from the year 2020, but decreased by 15.7 percent compared to their results from the previous year, 2019. (10.3 million in 2019).
The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport came in first place with 708,000 movements, which is an increase of 29.1 percent from 2020 but is still lower than the 904,000 moves it had in 2019. (-21.7 percent ). The second-place finisher is O’Hare, followed by Dallas Fort Worth in third place.
The World Airport Traffic Dataset contains information on airport traffic for more than 2,600 airports located across more than 180 nations and territories.