16.08.10
Heathrow is still the world’s biggest international airport and extended its lead over its rivals last year, despite a fall in passenger numbers. The airport suffered a 1.1% drop in international passengers in 2009, but this was better than an average of a 1.8% fall worldwide and 5.4% drop across Europe.
However, Heathrow lost its ranking as the world’s second-biggest airport overall to Beijing this year. The west London hub handled 66m passengers last year, behind US giant Atlanta with 88m and just ahead of Beijing on 65m. But Beijing saw passenger growth of 17%, and has already overtaken Heathrow this year on a rolling 12 month basis.
Heathrow tops the rankings for international traffic because of its huge volume of international passengers and lower proportion of domestic passengers, handling 60.6m international passengers last year. Both Atlanta and Beijing have more domestic passengers than international and neither feature in the top-ten of international airports.
Paris Charles de Gaulle was in second place for international passengers with 53m and Hong Kong third with 45m. Paris saw 5% fewer passengers than in 2008 and Hong Kong 4.6% fewer. Heathrow’s other leading rivals as international hubs also saw sharper falls in traffic. Frankfurt handled 44.5m, down 4.7%, and Amsterdam Schiphol 43.5m - down 8.1%. Only Dubai of the biggest international airports saw growth last year – handling 40m passengers, a rise of 9.6% on 2008.
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