The birthplace of Coca-Cola, “Gone with the Wind” and Martin Luther King Jr. is still home to the busiest passenger airport in the world.
More than 96 million passengers went through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2014, an increase of 1.9% over 2013, according to Airports Council International’s preliminary passenger traffic data, released Thursday.
With more than 86 million passengers last year, Beijing Capital International Airport remained in second place and continued to close the gap just a bit more with Atlanta, according to the worldwide association of airports. It saw an increase of 2.9% over 2013.
London’s Heathrow Airport continued to hold on to third place for another year, with more than 73 million passengers, an increase of 1.4%.
Toyko’s Haneda Airport was fourth with nearly 73 million passengers, a 5.7% increase over 2013.
The airports in fifth, sixth and seventh places swapped spots. Los Angeles International Airport moved up from sixth to fifth, Dubai moved up from seventh to sixth, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport dropped from fifth to seventh.
There were no changes to Paris Charles de Gaulle (eighth place), Dallas/Fort Worth (ninth) and Hong Kong (10th).
Passenger traffic continued to grow around the globe, with the world’s airports serving more than 6.6 billion passengers in 2014, an increase of 5.1% over the previous year, according to the report.
Though the news was mostly good for Atlanta, the city did lose some bragging rights.
Chicago O’Hare took the top spot from Atlanta in the number of takeoffs and landings, officially known as aircraft movements.
A spokesman for the Atlanta airport says its carriers are adding more aircraft with higher passenger capacity, which means fewer planes.
O’Hare took first place with 881,000 movements, followed by Atlanta with 868,359 and Los Angeles with 708,674. Rounding out that list were Dallas/Fort Worth, Beijing, Denver, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Houston and London.
Airport movements in both Chicago and Atlanta actually decreased compared with 2013. Chicago’s movements dropped by 0.2%, and Atlanta’s dropped by 4.7%.
Hong Kong’s airport is still the busiest cargo airport in the world, transporting more than 4.4 million metric tons of cargo in 2014. Memphis, Tennessee, home to FedEx, came in second place with 4.2 million metric tons and Shanghai was third with nearly 3.2 million metric tons. (One metric ton equals 2,205 pounds.)
Rounding out the top 10 were cargo airports in Incheon, South Korea; Anchorage, Alaska; Dubai; Louisville, Kentucky; Tokyo (Narita); Frankfurt, Germany; and Taipei, Taiwan.
The Airports Council International preliminary traffic report was based on data from 1,095 airports worldwide. A final version will be released later in the year.
