By , CNN
There’s no change at the top of the list. The No. 1 airport for passenger volume in 2023, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International, has held that position every year — except pandemic-walloped 2020 — for more than two decades.
But for the first time, Dubai takes the No. 2 ranking, according to Airports Council International’s preliminary rankings for 2023, released on Monday.
“Dubai served around 87 million passengers in 2023. That is a year-to-year increase of 31%, and that is 1% higher than 2019. And they connected 262 destinations around 104 countries to 102 international carriers,” said Luis Felipe de Oliveira, ACI World’s director general.
The airport’s jump up from No. 5 in 2022 is representative of a big growth area in aviation, with industry expansion in emerging and developing economies in the Middle East and Asia Pacific expected at more than twice the rate of advanced economies in the decades to come, de Oliveira said.
But Atlanta doesn’t have too much to worry about for now. With 104.7 million passengers in 2023, Dubai’s not nipping at its heels just yet.