London Heathrow is now officially the fourth-busiest airport in the world

If you’re travelling via Heathrow this summer, you might want to give yourself a bit of extra time to navigate the crowds. The London flight hub has just been crowned the fourth busiest airport in the world. As if flying wasn’t stressful enough already!

In 2023 Heathrow was the world’s seventh busiest airport according to the Airports Council International (ACI), but now it’s crawled its way up to number four, overtaking Denver, Tokyo and Istanbul. Last year Heathrow saw a mega 79.2 million passengers pass through its gates. In the rankings it is just three percent down from Dallas-Fort Worth in third place, and nine percent behind Dubai in second.

LHR also takes the title of the busiest airport in Europe, being the only European hub to make the top 10 busiest in the world. We may have lost the Euros, but at least we have this. 

Last month, the London airport also recorded its busiest day ever, with more than 268,000 passengers passing through on June 30.

Atlanta has remained the busiest flight hub in the world, with more than 100 million passengers in 2023. This is partly because it’s the home of Delta, the world’s biggest airline by revenue. 

See the full rankings on the ACI website here.

The 10 busiest airports in the world

1. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, USA

2. Dubai, UAE

3. Dallas Fort Worth, USA

4. London Heathrow, UK

5. Tokyo, Japan

6. Denver, USA 

7. Istanbul, Turkey

8. Los Angeles, USA

9. Chicago O’Hare, USA

10. New Delhi, India 

ICYMI: London’s Heathrow Airport saw a record-breaking number of passengers last year. 

Plus: British Airways is increasing its number of flights from London to Brazil and Argentina.

Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out London newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox