After 20 years, Atlanta has scratched out from the city with the world’s busiest airport. To break a more than a 20-year-long record of packed terminals and constant air traffic, must be hard on the managers.
Still representing a 40 % drop in passenger traffic at the airport from the year before and casting out Atlanta, the airport which is in the lead now is Guangzhou Bai Yun International Airport with more than 43 million passengers.
All the same, it’s a major step up in the rankings for this southern Chinese city when it came in at step 11 in 2019.
Gracing the list ever further, seven of the world’s busiest airports in last year were in China in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing.
General Luis Felipe de Oliveira, ACI World Director said that the impact of the COVID-19 on global passenger traffic brought aviation to a virtual halt in 2020 and the threat continues.
He also added that the data published today dismissing Atlanta after 20 years, reveals the challenge airports still face and it remains imperious that the industry should be supported through direct and sensible policy decisions from governments.
Others on the list were the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (came in at No. 2 this year after having a 61.2% drop in passengers paralleled to 2019), Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (took the 4th place), and Denver International Airport (No. 7 on the list).
In total, passenger traffic at the world’s top 10 busiest airports decreased by about 45.7% in 2020, while passenger traffic at airports overall decreased by about 64.6%, according to ACI. Atlanta took it pretty hard.
While passenger traffic came to a virtual standstill, air cargo volume in the 10 busiest cargo hubs increased by 3% last year, which ACI credited to an increase in demand for things like online consumer goods, pharmaceutical products, and personal protective equipment.