The On-Time And Busiest Flight Routes And Airports During 2023

03.01.2024 - 10:39 / forbes.com

It's staggering how many people can pass through the world's busiest airports in a year, especially considering the proportion of people who fly regularly is quite small—only 1.5-2 flights per year for the average person, depending on the data used. For passengers, it's helpful to know which are the busiest airports, the busiest routes and which airlines and airports can get its travelers through on time, with the least delays.

OAG recently published its data for 2023, compiled between January and December, for the busiest airports and the busiest routes. Likewise, Cirium published its On-Time Performance Review for 2023 for airports and airlines.

What's clear is that air travel has made a comeback from its dip during the pandemic and although it doesn't appear to be at 2019 levels across all regions, some routes rebounded—the U.S. domestic market reached 20% above 2019 levels by the third quarter.

The global winner for punctuality was Colombia's Avianca airlines although when networks and the number of passengers globally is considered, it is Delta airlines that won in terms of operational excellence, reporting an on-time arrival rate of 84.72% across all planes in 2023. As a comparison, the world's second oldest airline, Avianca, managed just above 213,000 flights, while Delta flew just over 1.6 million. Qatar, Iberia and American Airlines also made the top ten for top performing airlines.

To be clear, a flight is considered an on-time arrival or departure if the plane arrives at or departs from the gate within 15 minutes of its scheduled time.

Minneapolis-St. Paul airport came first for punctuality, both in the category of large airport and globally. Osaka, Japan won first place for a medium-sized airport and Mariscal Sucre in Quito, Ecuador won most on-time small airport.

Number one was Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, which counted an impressive 61 million seats (it was also the busiest in 2019 and 2022). Dubai airport was second (57 million seats) and Tokyo was third (53 million seats).

Dallas, Denver, Istanbul in Turkey and Guangzhou in China all made the top ten in 2023 but were only in the top 25 in 2019. Numbers for busiest global airports were calculated using total airline capacity, both domestic and international.

However, when only international capacity is measured, rather than combined with domestic data, the picture is slightly more European focused.

Dubai takes the top spot (56.5 million seats) but it is then followed by London Heathrow, Amsterdam's Schiphol (37 million seats), and Paris Charles de Gaulle airport (nearly 37 million seats).

OAG's top ten busiest airline routes internationally are all in the Middle East and Asia, except for one—the JFK New York to London Heathrow route was