Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi emerged as the world's 10th busiest airport in October, improving its ranking from the pre-pandemic period. In its report, aviation analytics firm OAG stated that the Delhi airport has improved from 14th place in October 2019, prior to the pandemic. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was the busiest in the world in October 2022.
The OAG rankings are based on scheduled airline capacity in the current month and are compared to the same month in 2019, prior to the pandemic. The list of the world's busiest airports is compiled using total capacity, both domestic and international.
Following Atlanta, Dubai and Tokyo Haneda airports are ranked second and third, respectively.
“When compared to October 2019, 6 of the Top 10 this month were also among the world’s Top 10 busiest airports then; airports which have seen their rankings rise, bringing them into the Top 10 now, are Dallas/Fort Worth (from 12th to 4th), Denver (from 20th to 5th), Istanbul (from 13th to 8th), and Delhi (from 14th to 10th),” OAG said in the report on its website.
According to OAG, the Delhi airport, also known as the Indira Gandhi International Airport, has 34,13,855 seats.
The Indian aviation sector is recovering after being severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, which also resulted in the suspension of scheduled international flight services for more than two years beginning in March 2020.
According to the OAG report, London Heathrow Airport is ranked sixth, Chicago O'Hare International Airport is seventh, and Los Angeles International Airport is ninth.
According to the report, Dubai International Airport is the busiest international airport, followed by London Heathrow Airport and Amsterdam Airport, which are ranked second and third, respectively.
There are no Indian airports among the top ten busiest international airports.
According to another report, OAG listed Mumbai to Dubai and Delhi to Dubai as two of the top ten busiest international routes.
From October 2021 to September 2022, the busiest airline routes are those with the highest volume of scheduled seats.
“India is also seeing an increase in route capacity with two routes in the top 10, operating from Mumbai to Dubai (BOM-DXB) and Delhi to Dubai (DEL-DXB),” it said.
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Furthermore, the route between Mumbai and New York is one of the most heavily travelled unserved routes, as defined by OAG as the routes with the highest volume of people travelling indirectly between two points.
“Based on passenger booking data for the period August 2021 – July 2022, eight of the top 10 largest unserved routes start or end in North America. New York features in three of the routes with Quito – New York (UIO-JFK) the largest market, with more than enough passengers to potentially sustain a direct service,” the report said.
Furthermore, OAG noted that the other New York routes include India's largest city, Mumbai (BOM-JFK), with nearly 82,000 passengers travelling indirectly between these two cities in a 12-month period.
