London Heathrow has reclaimed its place as the busiest airport for international airline capacity in the world.
The UK hub, which occupied top spot for international capacity in 2019, is offering 762,000 departing seats this week putting it ahead of its global competitors, according to an update from aviation data firm OAG.
Although this figure is still down 16.5 per cent on the corresponding week in 2019 when Heathrow offered 912,000 seats.
Heathrow ranks just ahead of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, which has 712,000 departing seats this week, and Dubai International at 701,000 seats.
The world’s top 20 largest airports are still all down on their 2019 capacity, although Dubai, Doha and Istanbul are only down by single digits in percentage terms.
Asia’s airports continue to struggle, particularly in China, due to continuing Covid-19 lockdowns with Hong Kong, the second busiest international airport in 2019, now only in 84th place with just 105,000 weekly seats.
The UK’s scheduled aviation market has also become the largest in Europe this week after overtaking Spain with just over three million seats, which is still down by 16.5 per cent on 2019 – a figure that matches Heathrow’s performance.
Western Europe as a region is continuing to see a gradual increase in weekly capacity, up by 180,000 seats week-on-week, to reach a total of 21.1 million seats, which puts it just behind North America with its 21.9 million seats.