Looking at data for the first two quarters of 2024, and focusing on the number of unique nonstop destinations served from each airport in those six months, aviation experts at Cirium have revealed the world’s best connected air travel hubs for 2024.
Istanbul on top, again
Istanbul is now the world’s “most connected airport”, boasting 309 destinations. The achievement comes just a month after it was also named “World’s Best Airport” by Travel+Leisure in July.
When it comes to direct connection numbers, the Turkish capital’s hub is followed by three well-known continental European airports: Frankfurt (296), Paris Charles de Gaulle (282) and Amsterdam (270) in fourth, a spot it shares with Chicago O’Hare, the best-connected US hub.
Knocking Heathrow off the top spot for “busiest airport for international departures”, is Dubai, which serves 269 destinations. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson (237) is the world’s busiest by most people’s definition, but when assessed by nonstop destinations, it barely scrapes in the top 10 in ninth place. Rome Fiumicino takes tenth with 234 non-stop destinations.
London’s Heathrow Airport no longer ranks among the 10 best-connected airports in the world, taking 12th spot for the number of direct destinations (221) served, four places below last year’s eighth spot. It’s a wounding fall from grace for Heathrow, which remains Europe’s biggest airport in terms of sheer passenger numbers and is still doing better than it was back in 2019 when it found itself in 18th place.
Meanwhile, Gatwick Airport, south of London, has managed to place 14th in the list, flying to 218 destinations despite serving half the passengers Heathrow does. Overall, London’s combination of six airports remains the world’s busiest ‘airport system’, but as a so-called “secondary airport”, Gatwick is an outlier sitting so high in the ranking, alongside Madrid. Similarly, Denver International punches way above its city weight.
China and US tie
Another point of interest in 2024’s ranking is the entry onto the scene of China, which comes straight in with Shanghai Pudong which serves 243 nonstop destinations and is sandwiched in eighth place by Dallas Fort Worth and Atlanta.
Indeed, China matched the US representation in the list, with four airports each. The Middle East is represented by Dubai in sixth, while Jeddah (219) sits just behind Heathrow. But Cirium has pointed out that Europe dominates the six-monthly data, with half the top 20 airports in the ranking located within the bloc.
