Istanbul Airport ranked 2nd in international passengers in 2021

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) – Last year only one airport had a larger international passenger volume than Turkiye's Istanbul Airport, its operator IGA said in a statement on Tuesday.

Istanbul Airport, Turkiye's largest, saw more than 26.4 million international passengers in 2021 – up 66% from the previous year, under the shadow of COVID-19 travel restrictions – showed the data based on the Airports Council International (ACI) ranking.

This carried Istanbul Airport to second place globally in terms of passenger volume, jumping four spots from sixth place last year. In 2019 it ranked just 14th place.

The United Arab Emirates' Dubai International Airport came on top with 29.1 million international passengers last year, while the Netherlands' Amsterdam Airport Schiphol ranked third.

In terms of total passengers, the US' Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the state of Georgia ranked first globally with 75.7 million passengers – a 76.4% jump in volume from the previous year.

Eight of the 10 airports with the highest number of total passengers were in the US, according to the figures.

"The ACI World passenger traffic rankings tell the story of an encouraging trend of recovery, with most of the recurrent busiest airports pre-COVID-19 back at the top," Luis Felipe de Oliveira, the ACI world director general, said in a statement.

"Although we are cautious that recovery could face multiple headwinds, the momentum created by reopening plans by countries (from COVID-19 restrictions) could lead to an uptick in travel in the second half of 2022," he added.