Dubai handled 95.2 million international passengers in 2025, more than any other airport for the 12th year running. Then the war with Iran, which began on 28 February 2026, disrupted flights across the Gulf, and Seoul Incheon took the lead for the first half of the year.
Why this matters: international hubs decide how easily travellers connect between continents. When one of them stalls, passengers and airlines move to the others within weeks, and the 2026 figures show exactly where they went.
Key Takeaways
- The world's 10 busiest international airports handled 692 million international passengers in 2025, about 17% of the 4.0 billion global total.
- Istanbul carried 68% more international passengers in 2025 than in 2019, while Hong Kong was still almost 15% below its 2019 level.
- Dubai's traffic fell 31.3% in the first half of 2026, and Incheon led the world with 38.4 million international passengers.
The World's Busiest Airports for International Passengers in 2025
ACI World ranks airports by the number of passengers on international flights only. This list differs from the overall ranking of the busiest airports, which is led by US hubs with large domestic markets.
Source: ACI World, World Airport Traffic Rankings 2025, international passengers (enplaned and deplaned), published 14 April 2026.
Dubai finished more than 15 million passengers ahead of London Heathrow, a gap larger than the whole distance between second and seventh place. Five of the top 10 are in Europe, three in Asia and two in the Gulf. Atlanta, the busiest airport in the world overall with 106.3 million passengers, does not appear here because most of its passengers fly domestic routes.
Which Airports Grew Fastest in 2025
Global international traffic grew by 5.9% in 2025, according to ACI World. Most of the top 10 grew more slowly than that, which is typical for hubs that are already close to full.
Source: ACI World, World Airport Traffic Rankings 2025, international passengers (enplaned and deplaned), published 14 April 2026.
Hong Kong grew by 14.9% and climbed from ninth to eighth place, overtaking Frankfurt. Istanbul grew by 5.8% and passed Paris CDG for sixth. Heathrow added less than 1%: it handled 84.5 million passengers in total in 2025, and ACI World describes Heathrow and CDG as operating at or near maximum capacity.
How the Top 10 Compare with 2019
Six years on from the last pre-pandemic year, the top 10 has split into two groups. Some hubs have grown far beyond their 2019 traffic, and others are still below it.
Source: ACI World, World Airport Traffic Rankings 2025, international passengers (enplaned and deplaned), published 14 April 2026.
Istanbul stands out: it ranked 14th for international passengers in 2019 and sixth in 2025. Doha is 40% above its 2019 level. At the other end, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Paris CDG and Amsterdam all carried fewer international passengers in 2025 than in 2019. Across the world, international traffic was 8.3% above 2019, so the European hubs below the line have lost share as well as passengers.
Six Hubs, Three Different Recoveries
Comparing 2019, 2023 and 2025 shows how quickly each hub came back after the pandemic. Look at the gap between 2023 and 2025 for the Asian airports.
Source: ACI World, World Airport Traffic Rankings 2024 (published 14 April 2025) and 2025 (published 14 April 2026); Dubai Airports for Dubai's 2019 total. 2019 and 2023 values are AirAdvisor calculations from ACI World's published growth rates.
Dubai and Istanbul were already above their 2019 level by 2023. Incheon only got back to its 2019 level in 2024, after a 26.7% jump that year. Hong Kong's climb has been the steepest, from about 39 million in 2023 to almost 61 million in 2025, yet it is still the only airport in this group that remains well short of 2019.
Dubai's Rise, Fall and Recovery
Dubai's own traffic reports show both of the shocks that hit the world's busiest international airport this decade. The dashed line is the operator's forecast for 2026.
Source: Dubai Airports traffic reports for 2019 to 2022; ACI World for 2023 to 2025 (2023 calculated from ACI World's growth rate); Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths, interview with Reuters reported 10 September 2026, for the 2026 forecast.
The pandemic cut Dubai's traffic by 70% in 2020, and it took until 2023 to pass 2019 again. Growth then continued to a record 95.2 million in 2025. The airport had planned for close to 100 million passengers in 2026. After the war with Iran began on 28 February 2026, Dubai Airports lowered its forecast to about 70 million, roughly a quarter below 2025. If that forecast holds, 2026 will be Dubai's weakest year since 2022.
How International Are the Biggest Hubs?
Some airports serve almost no domestic flights at all, while others mix both kinds of traffic. Comparing ACI World's international count with each airport's total passengers shows the split.
Source: ACI World, international passengers 2025 (14 April 2026) and total passengers 2025 (15 July 2026). International share is an AirAdvisor calculation. Los Angeles share as stated by ACI World.
Dubai, Amsterdam and Incheon are almost entirely international, because their countries have small or no domestic air markets. Heathrow's domestic share is about 5.5%, and Paris CDG's about 8%. Istanbul is the most mixed of the big hubs: more than one passenger in five flies within Türkiye. Los Angeles, the most international of the large US airports in the overall top 20, is still about two-thirds domestic, and ACI World says the other four US airports in that list are 80% to 95% domestic.
The Regional Picture: Europe Leads, Asia Gains
Grouping the top 10 by region shows which parts of the world dominate international hub traffic. Europe here includes Istanbul, which ACI EUROPE counts as a European airport.
Source: ACI World, World Airport Traffic Rankings 2025, international passengers. Regional shares are AirAdvisor calculations.
The five European airports carried almost half of the top 10's international passengers, about 49.0%. Asia-Pacific's three hubs, Incheon, Singapore and Hong Kong, held 29.4%, and the Gulf's two hubs 21.6%. Dubai on its own still carried more international passengers than any single European airport. For more on Europe's airports, including delays and cancellations, see our European airports statistics.
Airline data points the same way. IATA measures international traffic in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), one paying passenger flown one kilometre, grouped by where each airline is based.
Source: IATA, full-year 2025 passenger demand press release, 29 January 2026.
Airlines based in Asia-Pacific grew their international traffic by 10.9% in 2025, the fastest of any region. Middle East airlines grew by 6.7% and European airlines by 6.0%. North American airlines grew the least, at 2.1%. Global international traffic rose by 7.1%, ahead of the 5.3% growth in total passenger demand, so international flying keeps taking a bigger share of air travel. The wider picture is in our airline passenger traffic statistics.
2026 So Far: The Gulf Shock
The year started normally. IATA's monthly data shows what happened to Middle East airlines once the conflict began at the end of February.
Source: IATA, monthly air passenger market press releases for January to September 2026 (published 2 March to 30 October 2026). Figures are provisional.
International traffic by Middle East airlines fell by 60.8% in March and by 48.1% in April. It has recovered every month since, apart from a setback in August, but in September it was still 7.5% below a year earlier. European airlines kept growing all year. Asia-Pacific airlines slowed from double-digit growth in March to roughly flat over the summer. In September, global international traffic grew by 0.4%, and by 1.7% when Middle East airlines are excluded.
Incheon Takes the Lead in the First Half of 2026
With Dubai's traffic cut by a third, the ranking for the first half of 2026 looks very different from 2025. These are the five busiest airports for international passengers from January to June.
Source: Incheon International Airport Corporation, citing preliminary ACI World data, via Korea.net, 13 August 2026 (Incheon, Heathrow, Singapore); Airport Authority Hong Kong, 20 July 2026; Dubai Airports, 26 August 2026.
Incheon handled 38.4 million international passengers in the first half of 2026, the first time it has led the world since it opened in 2001. Its transfer passengers rose by 18.1%, and transfers from Europe by 63.2%, which Incheon Airport puts down to demand shifting away from Gulf hubs such as Dubai. Dubai's 31.5 million was 31.3% lower than a year earlier, although traffic rose each month from 3.5 million in April to 6.3 million in July. Hong Kong grew by 11.7%, faster than any other airport here. The full-year 2026 order is open: Dubai's forecast of about 70 million would put it below Heathrow, which handled about 80 million international passengers in 2025. Disruption like this also spreads to delays and cancellations, which we track in our global flight disruption statistics.
References and Sources
- ACI World, "World's busiest airports revealed in latest global rankings", press release with international passenger table, 14 April 2026: aci.aero
- ACI World, "Busiest airports in the world 2025", blog, 20 April 2026 (updated 11 November 2026): blog.aci.aero
- ACI World, "World's Busiest Airports: Atlanta Holds, Asia Climbs", World Airport Traffic Dataset 2026, 15 July 2026: aci.aero
- ACI World, "The busiest airports in the world defy global uncertainty and hold top rankings", international passenger table for 2024, 14 April 2025: aci.aero
- Dubai Media Office, "DXB enters stronger second half as capacity returns and investment continues", 26 August 2026: mediaoffice.ae
- Dubai Airports, "DXB shows strong recovery after unprecedented year" (2020 traffic), 15 February 2021: media.dubaiairports.ae
- Dubai Airports, "DXB has a banner year with annual traffic exceeding 66m passengers in 2022" (2021 and 2022 traffic), February 2023: aci-asiapac.aero
- Khaleej Times (Reuters), "Dubai Airports expects 2026 passenger traffic to reach 70 million, CEO says", 10 September 2026: khaleejtimes.com
- Korea.net, report on Incheon Airport ranking first worldwide for international passengers in the first half of 2026, 13 August 2026: korea.net
- The Standard (Airport Authority Hong Kong figures), "HKIA records strong growth in first half of 2026", 20 July 2026: thestandard.com.hk
- IATA, full-year 2025 passenger demand press release, 29 January 2026: iata.org
- IATA, monthly air passenger demand releases for January to September 2026, 2 March to 30 October 2026, including "Air passenger demand falls 0.5% in September": iata.org
- The National, "Dubai leads list of world's busiest international airports for 12th consecutive year", 15 April 2026: thenationalnews.com
Methodology
The 2025 ranking uses ACI World's international passenger table published on 14 April 2026, which counts passengers enplaned and deplaned on international flights. ACI World labelled these figures preliminary and confirmed its full dataset on 15 July 2026; the July release did not republish the international table, so the April figures are the latest published international ranking. Some airports' own figures differ slightly: Singapore Changi, for example, reported about 70 million passengers for 2025, compared with 69.4 million in ACI World's preliminary international table.
Figures for 2019 and 2023 are AirAdvisor calculations from the growth rates ACI World published with its 2025 and 2024 tables, except Dubai's 2019 total, which is the airport's reported 86.4 million. International shares divide ACI World's preliminary international count by its confirmed total passenger count for 2025; because the two releases differ slightly, shares are capped at 100%. Regional shares cover the top 10 airports only, with Istanbul counted in Europe. IATA figures measure revenue passenger kilometres by the region where airlines are based, so they describe airline traffic rather than airport traffic. First-half 2026 figures come from different publishers: Incheon, Heathrow and Singapore from preliminary ACI World data released by Incheon Airport, Hong Kong and Dubai from the airport operators, whose totals are all international traffic. The 2026 Dubai figure of about 70 million is a forecast by the operator; all other figures are historical. Passenger numbers are rounded to one decimal place in millions.
