Airports
About Airports
The world's major airports, region by region, each described so you can picture it before you count it: the fortress hubs of the American South where seven concourses process a connection in 40 minutes, the single-roof transfer machines of the Gulf and East Asia, the hemmed-in European giants where two runways carry a continent's traffic. Every airport page covers the terminals and what each is for, the airlines that hub there, the runways, and the passenger traffic with its year.
The regions read differently: North America's giants are domestic connecting machines, Europe's are slot-constrained gateways fighting for room to grow, the Middle East hosts the purpose-built super-hubs, and Asia-Pacific spans the world's most convenient mega-airport in Tokyo, the reclaimed-land showpieces of Incheon and Changi, and Delhi's rise with the fastest-growing market on Earth.
Frequently asked questions
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (ATL), with 106.3 million passengers in 2025, its 27th year at number one in the last 28; Dubai International (DXB) is the busiest for international passengers, and Chicago O'Hare (ORD) leads the world in takeoffs and landings.
An airline scheduling banks of flights so passengers connect through it: arrivals flow in, swap planes, and depart in waves. Atlanta is Delta's fortress hub, Dubai exists around Emirates' one-stop model, and Heathrow (LHR) concentrates British Airways' network on two runways.
Because hubs need flat, obstacle-free space near cities that have none left: Hong Kong (HKG) flattened an island, Incheon (ICN) rose from tidal flats, and Changi (SIN) keeps growing on land taken from the sea, sites that allow long runways and midnight operations without a city beneath the flight path.