The title of ‘Europe’s busiest airport’s is much contested – but it seems we have a new contender. According to new data, the title has recently been reclaimed by London’s Heathrow Airport.
Having processed over 3.6 million passengers in September, Heathrow is now officially busier than the likes of Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam Schiphol and Frankfurt am Main International.
This time last year, Heathrow was only Europe’s tenth-busiest aviation hub. Current passenger numbers are still around 15 percent below the levels they were three years ago. This is liekly due to Heathrow having a 100,000-passenger daily cap, which has been in place since July – but is set to be dropped at the end of this month.
A handful of airports worldwide handled even more passengers in September than Heathrow, including those in Atlanta, Dubai, Tokyo, Dallas and Denver.
The new data about passenger numbers comes from flight stats company OAG. Here’s the rest of OAG’s ranking of Europe’s busiest airports, which is based on the number of seats sold.
- London Heathrow (3,676,067 seats)
- Istanbul Airport (3,470,696)
- Paris Charles de Gaulle (3,196,682)
- Amsterdam Schiphol ( 3,067,108)
- Frankfurt am Main (3,053,964)
- Madrid Adolfo Suarez-Barajas (2,794,489)
- Barcelona El Prat (2,440,673)
- London Gatwick (2,131,925)
- Munich International (2,078,463)
- Rome Fiumicino (1,946,171)
If you’re looking for the nitty-gritty of Europe’s air traffic, you can find more info from OAG on passenger numbers and cargo available here.
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