IN Bureau

Delhi is now ranked as the third busiest airport in the world, moving up 6 places to surpass China’s Guangzhou in March 2022, according to the latest report from UK-based global data provider OAG.

With the Covid pandemic having largely receded, airlines operating into the Delhi airport flew a total of 3.5 million seats during March this year, an increase of 18% over February.

Atlanta and Dubai keep their positions as the Top 2 Busiest Global Airports in the World. However, Tokyo Haneda re-enters Top 10 Busiest Global Airports list in tenth place, just ahead of London Heathrow which moves up 8 places to take place in the Global Top 10 for the first time this year, the report states.

Jakarta and Shanghai have lost their places in the Top 10, leaving Guangzhou as the only airport in China to make it into the Top 10, according to the CAG report.

The US dominates the Global Busiest Airports list again, with five airports making up more than half of the seats in March's Top 10. Most notably, Dallas and Denver move up 11 and 14 places, respectively, from their pre-pandemic positions of 16th and 21st in 2019.

Growth of the US airports has come at the expense of Asian presence in the Global Top 10 as some of the big global airports of 2019, such as Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai slide down from their 2019 positions affected by travel restrictions.

The rankings are based on scheduled capacity in the current month, and compared to the equivalent month in 2019, pre-pandemic. The Top 10 Busiest Airports in the World are calculated using total capacity (domestic and international).

OAG also publishes a list of Top 10 Busiest International Airports which are calculated using international airline capacity only.

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