Ranked: The 10 Busiest Airports in North America

Which Airports Are the Busiest in North America?

Key Takeaways

• Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport handled 106.3 million passengers in 2025, over 20 million more than its nearest North American competitor.

• All 10 of North America’s busiest airports are in the United States, with no Canadian or Mexican airports making the list.

• Chicago O’Hare’s passenger traffic grew by 6% in 2025, while Las Vegas saw a 5.9% decline.

More than 100 million passengers passed through Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport in 2025, keeping it firmly atop the global rankings.

This graphic ranks North America’s 10 busiest airports by total passenger traffic, using 2025 figures from Airports Council International. Totals include arriving and departing passengers on both domestic and international flights.

Atlanta: The Airport Capital of America

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta handled 106.3 million passengers in 2025, compared with 85.7 million at runner-up Dallas Fort Worth. That gap of approximately 20.6 million passengers translates to more than 56,000 additional passenger movements per day.

Below Atlanta, the competition was considerably tighter. Dallas Fort Worth finished just 804,000 passengers ahead of third-place Chicago O’Hare (84.9 million), while Denver (82.4 million) followed close behind.

RankAirportTotal PassengersAnnual Change

1Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (ATL)106,302,208-1.6%

2Dallas Fort Worth (DFW)85,660,127-2.5%

3Chicago O’Hare (ORD)84,856,0186.0%

4Denver International (DEN)82,427,9620.1%

5Los Angeles International (LAX)73,709,594-3.8%

6John F. Kennedy (JFK)62,629,455-1.0%

7Orlando International (MCO)57,675,5730.8%

8Miami International (MIA)55,314,661-1.1%

9Harry Reid International (LAS)55,030,375-5.9%

10San Francisco International (SFO)54,532,6134.3%

Atlanta’s dominance stretches back decades. Hartsfield-Jackson has held the title of world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic every year since 1998 except 2020, when the pandemic disrupted global travel.

Despite covering three major aviation markets, the entire top 10 consists of U.S. airports. Canada’s busiest, Toronto Pearson, handled 47.2 million passengers in 2025, placing it below San Francisco, the 10th-ranked airport, at 54.5 million.

The Hub and Spoke Strategy

The top three airports in North America are major hubs for the Big Three U.S. network airlines. Atlanta is Delta’s largest hub, while Dallas Fort Worth serves as American Airlines’ largest hub and Chicago O’Hare is a major United Airlines hub.

Atlanta benefits from geography as well as airline scale: approximately 80% of the U.S. population is within a two-hour flight. That makes it a useful transfer point for travelers connecting between cities across the country and abroad.

Concentrating flights at one airport allows airlines to combine passengers from many origins onto connecting services. By May 2026, Delta offered nearly 1,000 peak-day departures from Atlanta to 207 destinations. That extensive network helps explain why Atlanta handles so many passengers whose journeys begin and end elsewhere.

Chicago’s Gains and the Vegas Slump

Chicago O’Hare and Las Vegas recorded sharply different results in 2025. O’Hare’s passenger traffic rose 6%, the fastest growth among North America’s 10 busiest airports, while Harry Reid International in Las Vegas experienced the largest decline at 5.9%.

O’Hare’s growth also outpaced the 3.7% increase in global passenger traffic. The Chicago airport ranked first worldwide for aircraft movements, or takeoffs and landings, even as Atlanta retained its lead in total passengers.

Las Vegas handled approximately 55 million passengers amid a broader tourism slowdown. The city welcomed 38.5 million visitors in 2025, down 7.5% from the previous year, while hotel occupancy and average room rates also declined.

Convention attendance remained comparatively steady at approximately 6 million, helping support Las Vegas as leisure and international visitation weakened.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To compare North America’s busiest airports with those across the Atlantic, check out The top 10 airports in the EU based on number of flights on Voronoi.

Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-10-busiest-airports-in-north-america/