Heathrow loses leadership among the world’s busiest airports

London Heathrow Airport has lost the top spot in the ranking of the busiest airports in Europe due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

By the end of 2020, Heathrow dropped to third place, letting ahead of the new international airport in Istanbul, which opened in October 2018, and the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

In the fourth position of the ranking after Heathrow was Amsterdam Airport, and in the fifth position – Moscow airport Sheremetyevo.

According to the agency, Heathrow’s passenger traffic for 2020 fell by 73%.

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“If in 2019 almost 81 million people used the services of this airport, then in the past it was only 22.1 million. The reason for this was the COVID-19 pandemic. British authorities and prompted other states to restrict or completely ban flights to London,” Bloomberg writes.

While most Western European airports, including major airports in Frankfurt and Barcelona, traffic fell by 70% or more, the two largest airports – Istanbul and Moscow Sheremetyevo – reported a much smaller reduction in passenger traffic, which led to an improvement in their position in the ranking.

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So, in particular, the new Istanbul airport, according to Bloomberg, attracted 23.4 million travelers in the first full calendar year of operation, becoming the busiest in Europe last year. Sheremetyevo Airport in 2020 was used by 19.8 million people (a year earlier – 49.9 million).