A fire erupted at a major electricity substation near London's Heathrow Airport early Friday morning, interrupting traffic at one of the world's biggest travel hubs through much of the day just as the air travel industry has finally begun to rebound from its COVID-19 pandemic-era lows.
As the pandemic falls further into the past and the tourism industry continues to rebuild itself, airports around the globe are seeing significant growth, according to the World Economic Forum. So where are the rest of the world's busiest airports?
Four of them are in the United States, according to an annual report released by aviation analytics firm OAG Aviation.
The report calculates each airport's traffic based on each airplane's seating capacity. Seats, according to OAG, refers to the number of travelers who could travel through an airport, not the actual number of passengers who flew.
Once again, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was named the busiest airport in the world with 62.7 million seats. Atlanta has earned the crown every year since 1998 with the exception of 2020, when air travel was hindered by COVID-19.
According to the OAG report, the airport's capacity increased 2% from 2023 but still sits 1% below its pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Coming in at second was Dubai International Airport with 60.2 million seats — a 7% increase from 2023. Heathrow is ranked fourth, with 51.5 million seats.
Across the rest of the U.S., Dallas Fort Worth International Airport took fifth place (51.5 million seats), Denver International Airport grabbed sixth (49.2 million seats) and Chicago O'Hare International Airport caps the list at 10th (47 million seats).
The airports in Dallas and Denver far surpassed their pre-pandemic capacities, with increases of 18% and 24%, respectively, since 2019 — marking the largest growth among the top-10 airports.
Shanghai Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China, saw the most growth in the last year with a 29% increase in capacity.
Many of those trends seem to have continued into 2025. In March, Atlanta remained at the top spot on the list with 5.3 million seats. Dubai and Tokyo still sat at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Dallas Fort Worth, however, has crept into fourth place with 4.4 million seats, knocking Heathrow down one spot.
