Atlanta Airport Claims to Be World’s Busiest

ATLANTA – Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport officials said Friday that the latest flight records prove the airport is the world’s busiest.

Atlanta’s airport had a total of 497,019 flights from January to June of this year. Atlanta’s main competitor – Chicago O’Hare International Airport – had 483,473 flights, said Carolyn Blum, regional administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The airport has seen 27 million passengers from January to April, and is on track to serve 88 million passengers by the end of the year, said airport General Manager Ben DeCosta. O’Hare served almost 24 million passengers in the same time period, said Dan Curtin, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Aviation.

Atlanta had previously edged out O’Hare in terms of number of passengers, handling 83 million last year. Chicago saw nearly 76 million passengers.