Delhi Airport Ranked World's 9th Busiest Airport In 2024, This Is First

Delhi airport has been ranked the world's 9th busiest airport, handling more than 7.7 crore passengers in 2024, a report released on Tuesday said.

Airports Council International's list of the world's 20 busiest airports is topped by Atlanta airport in the US which processed 10,80,67,766 passengers, followed by Dubai airport (9,23,31,506 passengers) and Dallas/Fort Worth airport in the US (8,78,17,864 passengers) at the second and third spots, respectively.

"Global passenger traffic hit a new high in 2024, surpassing 9.4 billion travellers -- up 8.4 per cent from 2023 and 2.7 per cent above pre-pandemic levels (2019)... The top-20 airports alone processed 1.54 billion passengers, capturing 16 per cent of global traffic," the release said.

In 2024, the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital handled 7,78,20,834 passengers, improving its ranking to the 9th position from 10th in 2023.

The figure is based on the total number of enplaned and deplaned passengers while passengers in transit have been counted once.

According to the Airports Council International (ACI) said the US contributed six airports to the top 20, mostly dominated by domestic traffic, except for JFK, where international passengers made up 56 per cent.

Shanghai Pudong (PVG) climbed 11 positions to rank 10th globally, it said in a release.

Other airports in the top 10 rankings are Japan's Haneda (4th), UK's London Heathrow (5th), US' Denver (6th), Turkiye's Istanbul (7th), US' Chicago (8th) and China's Shanghai (10th).

In terms of aircraft movements, Delhi airport was ranked two notches higher at the 15th position in 2024 compared to 2023. The number of aircraft movements at the airport touched 4,77,509 last year.

The list is topped by Atlanta airport with 7,96,224 aircraft movements.

In 2024, aircraft movements topped 100.6 million globally, an increase of 3.9 per cent year-on-year and reached 96.8 per cent of 2019 levels, ACI said.

The top-20 airports saw 11.08 million movements in 2024, up 5.4 per cent year-over-year.

ACI represents 830 members operating 2,181 airports in 170 countries.

The rankings reflect the scale of global aviation and the resilience of the industry that continues to grow, despite the complex global environment, ACI World Director General Justin Erbacci said.

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