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Culture

What Is the Busiest Airport in the World?

Since 2000, the busiest airport is the world is Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The airport sees 94 million passengers annually, whereas the Beijing Capital International Airport, the second busiest airport, sees almost 84 million passengers annually. Many improvements were made to the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport over the last decade, leading the Airport Transport Research Society to name it as the world's most efficient airport in 2011.

More about airports:

  • The world's oldest airport still in operation is College Park Airport in Maryland.
  • Gibraltar Airport has a runway that intersects one of the city's busiest roads. Crossing gates, like those used for railroads, stop traffic whenever a plane lands or departs.
  • Prior to the development of modern airports, aircraft would take off and land in fields, and only functioned in dry conditions.

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Discussion Comments

By Krunchyman — On Oct 28, 2014

From reading some of these tidbits, you can definitely see that airports have come a very long way, especially from the days of landing in fields. Also, although it's true that this is the busiest airport in the world, one thing I wonder is how those who work at airports are able to keep up with such a high demand.

However, considering how it's their job to manage everything that goes on there, and the fact that many people are working as a team, it shouldn't really come as a surprise that they're able to handle it so well. In fact, I dare say that working at an airport is one of the busiest jobs in the world, if not the busiest.

Whether it's during the Holidays or during bad weather, from the looks of it, not only are airports improving in their technology, but they seem to be getting busier and busier by the day, and show absolutely no signs of slowing down.

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