Airports Council International (ACI) World has announced the top ten busiest airports in the world for 2021, indicating hopeful signs of traffic recovery as several previous largest airports once again top the rankings.

Air freight, which was less affected by COVID-19, saw its volumes increase by about 15% year-on-year (+3.5% compared to 2019), reaching an expected record high of 124 million metric tons in 2021.

Air cargo volumes at the top ten airports grew 12.4 percent year-on-year in 2021, accounting for about 25 percent (34.2 million metric tons) of global volumes in 2021 (or 15.0 percent from 2019 results ). The increase is attributable to the continued increase in demand for online consumer goods and pharmaceuticals.

The world airport ranking is based on a first collection of global statistics for 2021 from airports around the world. Due to ACI's reach as the world's airport trade organization, the rankings represent the most current airport statistics used by the industry and include passenger traffic, cargo volumes and aircraft movements.

According to ACI World, there will be more than 69 million aircraft movements worldwide by 2021, an increase of more than 12% from 2020. The top ten airports account for about 8% of global traffic (5.3 million movements) and recorded an annual increase of 33.9 percent. year-on-year increase, despite a 16.1 percent decline in 2019.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL, 708 thousand movements, +29.1%), Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD, 684 thousand, +27.1%) and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW, 652 thousand , +26.7%) are the top three. The top ten airports for aircraft movements are all in the United States.