These are lists of the busiest
airports in the United States, based on various ranking criteria.
Statistics
Busiest U.S. airports by total passenger boardings
The FAA uses passenger boarding for a full calendar year to determine
Airport Improvement Program (AIP) entitlements.
The term hub is used by the FAA to identify very busy commercial service airports. Large hubs are the airports that each account for at least one percent of total U.S. passenger enplanements. Medium hubs are defined as airports that each account for between 0.25 percent and 1 percent of the total passenger enplanements.
The 30 large hubs move 70% of the passengers with a traffic increasing by 2.5% from 2016 to 2017, while the 31 medium hubs grew by 5.2% and 16 airports lost airline services between 2014 and 2018, from 445 to 429.
Mainline carriers are up-gauging their fleet while
scope clause
A scope clause is part of a contract between a major airline and the trade union of its pilots that limit the number and size of aircraft that may be flown by the airline's regional airline affiliate. The goal is to protect the union pilots' job ...
s regional aircraft operations and turboprops and 50-seat
regional jets are abandoned: aircraft with 50 seats or fewer represented 30% of domestic departures and 12% of seats offered in 2014, falling to 19% in 2018 and 7% of seats.
Accounting for 18% of passenger traffic, medium hubs stimulate point-to-point services like for
Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...
, operating at 29, carrying most mainline passengers at 24 and more than half at 10.
Large hubs
Medium hubs
Busiest U.S. airports by total passenger traffic
List of busiest airports in the U.S. based on total passengers, data are based on numbers provided from annual or monthly published figures by own airport authorities.
2020
2019
2018
2016
Listed according to data compiled by
Airports Council International North America, and ranked according to total passengers during 2016.
All 36 airports on this list are also featured on the FAA list, but the order varies. The FAA ranks by passengers boarding. ACI ranks by sum of boarding, disembarking, and flying through without leaving airplane. The statistics are slightly more than twice as high.
Busiest U.S. airports by international passenger traffic
Busiest U.S. airports by total cargo throughput
Listed according to data compiled by the
Federal Aviation Administration for the
United States and ranked according to total cargo throughput in pounds during 2017.
See also
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List of airports in the United States
The list of airports in the United States is broken down into separate lists due to the large number of airports.
Primary airports
Public-use and military airports in each U.S. state and territory can be found on the following lists:
Airports ...
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List of the busiest airports in California
List of the busiest airports in California
In Calendar year 2016 (preliminary FAA data) by passenger boardings, not total passengers'', except for Tijuana. While large airports dominant traffic and small airports struggle to retain carriers or com ...
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List of busiest airports by passenger traffic
References
External links
United States Department of Transportation:
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Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) 2005-2009*FAA National Flight Data Center (NFDC)
Airport Data (Form 5010) also available fro
AirportIQ 5010
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*Busiest
United States