Traveling through a busy airport can be one of the worst experiences for a traveler. Multiple things that you may have to deal with can derail some of the fun of travel. One of the most common and annoying issues of all? Delays. Either you’re spending hours waiting at the gate or, even worse, you’re counting down each agonizing second on the runway until the aircraft is clear for takeoff. Lately, however, some of the busiest hubs in the US are getting “less busy.”
If you were hoping to hear that Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International is one of the facilities in the US experiencing less air traffic, we’re sorry to disappoint. This is actually the only US airport that has retained its spot on the list of airports with the most traffic, meaning it continues to be the busiest airport in the world. All the other US airports on the list, however, dropped at least one spot in the ranking that counts the number of passengers that board or exit planes through their terminals.
The DFW airport, for example, was beaten out by Dubai’s largest facility for the second spot on the list. Does this mean that you can expect DFW terminals to be less busy this summer? According to the numbers, unfortunately, no! It’s actually the opposite. The number of people using the Dallas airport has increased by around 8% from 2019 to 2023. So, why is Dallas dropping on the list? It’s simply because the Dubai airport is seeing more passengers arriving through its gates. Dubai saw a rise of 31% more passengers in 2023 compared to the last year.
Denver International Airport is another US facility that dropped on the top ten list. Again, this doesn’t mean that fewer people are flying into Colorado. In fact, the facility saw 12% more people arrive in 2023 than it did in 2022. The big reason why US facilities are dropping on the list is because more international travelers are arriving at airports across the world. US facilities, for their part, cater much more to domestic travelers.
The two US airports that do appear on the list and are getting less traffic are LAX and Chicago O’Hare. Although the number of passengers is on the rise, both facilities have yet to reach pre-pandemic numbers. As the years go on, though, that’s likely to change. The good news for both of these facilities is that they’re getting some time to renovate their existing terminals to accommodate the influx of passengers. Something, for example, that isn’t happening in Dubai where the wave of new passengers is coming in extremely quickly.
The biggest takeaway from these lists is that international travelers are on the rise. The fact that US airports are dropping on these lists doesn’t mean you’ll find them less busy when you arrive. Domestic travel is on the rise, even in places where the numbers have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. One final nugget from all of this information has to do with the Memphis, Tennessee, airport. If you’re ever in Memphis and you’re stuck on the runway wondering why that’s the case if the terminals weren’t too crowded, it’s because of cargo planes. The airport came in second as the facility that gets the most cargo air travel.
