Order by:

PassengersCargoMovementsAirlinesLongest runway

1.	Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta Airport United States (ATL) Passengers: 106.30 M Cargo volume: 734,771 t Movements: 807,625 Airlines: 37 Longest runway: 12,390 ft
2.	Dubai Airport United Arab Emirates (DXB) Passengers: 92.30 M Cargo volume: 1,805,898 t Movements: 416,405 Airlines: 84 Longest runway: 14,590 ft
3.	Dallas Fort Worth Airport Dallas-Fort Worth, United States (DFW) Passengers: 85.66 M Cargo volume: 910,623 t Movements: 743,394 Airlines: 33 Longest runway: 13,401 ft
4.	Tokyo Haneda Airport Japan (HND) Passengers: 85.00 M Cargo volume: 796,500 t Movements: 464,910 Airlines: 32 Longest runway: 11,024 ft
5.	Shanghai Pudong Airport Shanghai (Pudong), China (PVG) Passengers: 84.99 M Cargo volume: 4,091,941 t Movements: 557,043 Airlines: 65 Longest runway: 13,123 ft
6.	Chicago O'Hare Airport United States (ORD) Passengers: 84.85 M Cargo volume: 1,906,463 t Movements: 860,015 Airlines: 46 Longest runway: 13,000 ft
7.	İstanbul Airport Istanbul, Turkey (IST) Passengers: 84.51 M Movements: 549,309 Longest runway: 13,451 ft
8.	London Heathrow Airport United Kingdom (LHR) Passengers: 84.48 M Cargo volume: 1,672,874 t Movements: 479,996 Airlines: 86 Longest runway: 12,799 ft
9.	İstanbul Atatürk Airport Istanbul(Bakırköy), Turkey (ISL) Passengers: 84.46 M Cargo volume: 2,557,427 t Movements: 505,968 Airlines: 68 Longest runway: 8,530 ft
10.	Guangzhou Baiyun Airport Guangzhou (Huadu), China (CAN) Passengers: 83.58 M Cargo volume: 2,439,248 t Movements: 550,512 Airlines: 56 Longest runway: 12,467 ft
11.	Denver Airport United States (DEN) Passengers: 82.43 M Cargo volume: 305,344 t Movements: 701,335 Airlines: 24 Longest runway: 16,000 ft
12.	Indira Gandhi Airport New Delhi, India (DEL) Passengers: 78.70 M Cargo volume: 857,419 t Movements: 466,452 Airlines: 59 Longest runway: 14,534 ft
13.	Los Angeles Airport United States (LAX) Passengers: 73.71 M Cargo volume: 2,130,835 t Movements: 580,996 Airlines: 62 Longest runway: 12,894 ft
14.	Charles de Gaulle Airport Paris (Roissy-en-France, Val-d'Oise), France (CDG) Passengers: 72.03 M Cargo volume: 1,814,953 t Movements: 454,893 Airlines: 108 Longest runway: 13,829 ft
15.	Incheon Airport Seoul, South Korea (ICN) Passengers: 71.16 M Cargo volume: 2,954,684 t Movements: 211,404 Airlines: 66 Longest runway: 13,123 ft
16.	Beijing Capital Airport China (PEK) Passengers: 70.74 M Cargo volume: 1,550,926 t Movements: 442,046 Airlines: 81 Longest runway: 12,500 ft
17.	Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Netherlands (AMS) Passengers: 68.80 M Cargo volume: 1,378,041 t Movements: 441,969 Airlines: 79 Longest runway: 12,467 ft
18.	Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport Spain (MAD) Passengers: 68.18 M Cargo volume: 381,069 t Movements: 366,605 Airlines: 69 Longest runway: 14,271 ft
19.	Singapore Changi Airport Singapore (SIN) Passengers: 67.70 M Cargo volume: 2,056,700 t Movements: 301,700 Airlines: 83 Longest runway: 13,123 ft
20.	Shenzhen Bao'an Airport China (SZX) Passengers: 66.49 M Cargo volume: 2,050,836 t Movements: 448,019 Airlines: 31 Longest runway: 12,467 ft
21.	Frankfurt Main Airport Frankfurt am Main, Germany (FRA) Passengers: 63.19 M Cargo volume: 1,931,296 t Movements: 430,436 Airlines: 100 Longest runway: 13,123 ft
22.	John F. Kennedy Airport New York, United States (JFK) Passengers: 62.63 M Cargo volume: 1,430,418 t Movements: 480,793 Airlines: 74 Longest runway: 14,511 ft
23.	Suvarnabhumi Airport Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) Passengers: 62.23 M Cargo volume: 1,326,914 t Movements: 290,916 Airlines: 98 Longest runway: 13,123 ft
24.	Orlando Airport United States (MCO) Passengers: 57.68 M Cargo volume: 222,394 t Movements: 310,117 Airlines: 35 Longest runway: 12,005 ft
25.	Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport Spain (BCN) Passengers: 57.48 M Cargo volume: 96,568 t Movements: 276,496 Airlines: 69 Longest runway: 11,811 ft

Airports Council International

The Airports Council International (ACI) is an umbrella organization consisting of 641 members that deal with all aspects of airport management. Of these 641 members, a total of 1,953 airports are operated in 176 countries (as of January 2018). This also includes all major airports worldwide. In monthly and annual reports, the ACI publishes the traffic figures for passengers and freight traffic of its members with a 12-month delay. The official figures for 2025 will therefore only be available at the beginning of 2027 and will also be limited to the top 30 places.

In total, there are 61 airports with a passenger volume of over 25 million per year, which the ACI classifies as major airports. Of these, around one third are located in North America and one quarter in Europe. The rest are spread across Asia, Australia and South America. None of the major airports are located in Africa.

IATA and ICAO codes

The best-known airport abbreviations are the three-digit letter combinations of the IATA. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is an association of around 280 airlines worldwide. The airports themselves are not members in the strict sense, but there are several hundred strategic partnerships between IATA and airports, the aviation industry and public authorities, as well as travel agencies and suppliers.

The aim of IATA is the international development of safe and economical air traffic. This includes, above all, the creation of standards such as ticket or booking systems. For example, it handles the booking and invoicing of over 400 million airline tickets every year.

The IATA codes are issued for airports (e.g., "SFO" for San Francisco), airlines (e.g., "LH" for Lufthansa) and aircraft types (e.g., "388" for an Airbus A380-800). The letters of an airport code usually have a connection with the name of the city. Only at very large airports does IATA assign a code that is not based on the city or region, but on the name of the airport, for example LHR (London Heathrow) or CDG (Charles de Gaulle).

A major drawback of the IATA codes is the limited selection of three-digit codes, which means that codes are assigned again after some time. Since IATA only issues an official list for a four-digit fee, several internet services are involved in collecting these codes. Unfortunately, this always leads to the listing of previously used codes for wrong airports and thus to apparent duplicates.

A further organization for international air traffic is the "International Civil Aviation Organization" (ICAO), which is a special organization of the United Nations (UN) and also assigns its own codes for airports, airlines and aircraft types. Unlike IATA codes, however, normal passengers rarely come into contact with ICAO codes. They are mostly used by pilots and air traffic control. They are recognizable by their four letters, which gives them an advantage over the IATA codes in that there are considerably more possible combinations and the same code is not assigned multiple times. Their more systematic structure also makes it possible to identify where an airport is located. The first two letters stand for the region and the country.

CSV download

An (unfortunately incomplete) list of the IATA and ICAO codes used on WorldData.info is available here free of charge as a CSV file for download.