Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson has retained its top spot.

Airports Council International (ACI) World has released its definitive list of the world’s busiest airports alongside final 2025 data confirming that global air travel reached 9.8 billion passengers. Among the Top 20, Asian hubs have made a strong comeback.

The industry has been closing in on a 10-billion-passenger breakthrough, according to the 2026 ACI World Airport Traffic Dataset released today. However, the Middle East crisis, which has recently been thrown into turmoil again by renewed US strikes on Iran, might prevent that goal from being reached in 2026.

In addition, ACI World Director General Justin Erbacci said: “Global air travel is approaching a historic milestone, but record demand is also exposing growing pressures on capacity. The planning and investment decisions made today will determine whether aviation can meet the demands of the next generation of travellers.”

The 2025 dataset, which covers 2,817 airports across more than 180 countries and territories, shows that global passenger traffic rose +3.7% year-on-year, and +6.5% above 2019 levels. Five US airports, due to their large domestic traffic, dominate the Top 20 leaderboard. Four are in the Top 10, led by Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) ranked 1st with 106.3 million passengers (down –1.6%). They are predominantly national hubs, with domestic traffic accounting for between 80-95% of total passengers.

Nine Asia-Pacific airports in the Top 20

ACI World’s definitive list of the world’s busiest airports, 2025.

Dubai International (DXB) was in 2nd place again, but the big shift was with Asia-Pacific airports. They accounted for nine places in the Top 20, up from seven in 2024, led by Tokyo’s Haneda (HND) in 3rd place with 91.7m passengers, up +6.7%. Meanwhile, Kuala Lumpur International (KUL) and Shenzhen (SZX) were new entries (see chart).

KUL was the biggest mover in the Top 20, rising six places from 26th in 2024 to 20th in 2025. The airport handled 63.4m passengers, up +11% year-on-year, supported by capacity expansion, robust domestic traffic growth of +17%, international demand up +8.7%, and stronger connectivity with China and other key markets. The airport is therefore well positioned to capitalise on Visit Malaysia 2026.

Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) posted the second largest jump, climbing five places from 10th to 5th. Its +10.7% passenger growth was driven by the rebound in international travel, supported by visa policy easing and expanded global connectivity, reflecting the broader reopening of China’s aviation market.

Meanwhile, the other Top 20 newcomer, China’s SZX, climbed three places to 19th with 66.5m passengers, up +8.2%, and well ahead of pre-Covid 2019 by +25.6%, the strongest rebound of any Chinese airport in the Top 20. In terms of trajectories, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport (CAN) has been notable. The gateway topped the global table in 2020 (during Covid), but fell to 57th place in 2022 before rising up again, to hold 9th place in 2025.

TRBusiness Top 10 international airports analysis

The world’s 20 busiest airports handled 1.59 billion passengers, representing 16% of all air travellers globally. For travel retailers and duty-free operators, it is the airports with the biggest throughput of international passengers – who tend to be the higher-spenders – that are of most interest.

Included with the next issue of TRBusiness, out soon, watch out for a separate ezine supplement that examines in detail the retail operations of the world’s busiest international hubs. Each airport is profiled in the context of the Middle East crisis and their individual travel retail strategies and latest developments.