Air travel is facing real challenges in 2026, what with fuel costs, rising airfares, war in the Middle East and a disinclination of international visitors to come to the United States, where even hosting the World Cup games didn’t seem to help.
Recent statistics from the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) show that international passengers coming to the U.S. during June was down by 1.6% compared to last year.
‘Time will tell,” as they say, what the total air travel numbers will tally to for 2026. But for 2025, Airports Council International (ACI) World reports that global air travel reached 9.8 billion, which is edging very close to the historic 10 billion threshold.
That means busy airports. And a ‘busiest’ airport title.
According to ACI World, for 2025, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) retained the No. 1 position among busiest airports with 106.3 million passengers in 2025, despite a year-on-year decline of 1.6%.
The airport has held the title of world’s busiest by passenger traffic every year since 1998, except for 2020.
Dubai International Airport (DXB, 95.2 million passengers, +3.1%) and Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND, 91.7 million passengers, +6.7%) held second and third place respectively. But they’re closing the gap with ATL.
In the chart below, you’ll see that five of the busiest 20 airports are located in the United States. Four are predominantly domestic hubs, with domestic traffic accounting for between 80 and 95% of total passengers.
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the exception, ACI World notes, with domestic passengers representing 68% of traffic, reflecting its stronger international connectivity.
Here’s the line-up.
| Top 20 busiest airports by global passenger traffic 2025 – courtesy ACI WORLD | ||||||
| 2025 | 2024 | 2019 | Airport | 2025 | % vs 2024 | % vs 2019 |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | Atlanta GA, US (ATL) | 106,302,208 | -1.6% | -3.8% |
| 2 | 2 | 4 | Dubai, AE (DXB) | 95,192,160 | +3.1% | +10.2% |
| 3 | 4 | 5 | Tokyo, JP (HND) | 91,679,814 | +6.7% | +7.2% |
| 4 | 3 | 10 | Dallas/Fort Worth TX, US (DFW) | 85,660,127 | -2.5% | +14.1% |
| 5 | 10 | 8 | Shanghai, CN (PVG) | 84,994,548 | +10.7% | +11.6% |
| 6 | 8 | 6 | Chicago IL, US (ORD) | 84,856,018 | +6.0% | +0.2% |
| 7 | 5 | 7 | London, GB (LHR) | 84,482,126 | +0.7% | +4.4% |
| 8 | 7 | 28 | Istanbul, TR (IST) | 84,437,710 | +5.5% | +61.8% |
| 9 | 12 | 11 | Guangzhou, CN (CAN) | 83,582,952 | +9.5% | +13.9% |
| 10 | 6 | 16 | Denver CO, US (DEN) | 82,427,962 | +0.1% | +19.4% |
| 11 | 9 | 17 | New Delhi, IN (DEL) | 78,148,081 | +0.4% | +14.1% |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | Incheon, KR (ICN) | 74,126,912 | +4.1% | +4.1% |
| 13 | 11 | 3 | Los Angeles CA, US (LAX) | 73,709,594 | -3.8% | -16.3% |
| 14 | 14 | 9 | Paris, FR (CDG) | 72,029,407 | +2.5% | -5.4% |
| 15 | 16 | 2 | Beijing, CN (PEK) | 70,742,712 | +5.0% | -29.3% |
| 16 | 15 | 18 | Singapore, SG (SIN) | 69,982,000 | +3.5% | +2.5% |
| 17 | 17 | 12 | Amsterdam, NL (AMS) | 68,771,592 | +2.9% | -4.1% |
| 18 | 18 | 22 | Madrid, ES (MAD) | 68,118,754 | +3.0% | +10.4% |
| 19 | 22 | 26 | Shenzhen, CN (SZX) | 66,485,213 | +8.2% | +25.6% |
| 20 | 26 | 21 | Kuala Lumpur, MY (KUL) | 63,409,501 | +11.0% | +1.7% |
| * Total passengers enplaned and deplaned, passengers in transit counted once | ||||||
This dataset covers 2,817 airports across more than 180 countries and territories and both updates and finalizes preliminary rankings sharded in April 2026.
