Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport becomes the world’s busiest
January 26, 2021 Category China News Round-up, Weekly
Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport was the world’s busiest airport with 43.768 million passengers in 2020, the first time for a Chinese airport to reach the top of the ranking, breaking the record of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the U.S. after 22 years. Baiyun’s passenger throughput in 2018 was 69.74 million, ranking 13th globally, and it climbed to 11th place in 2019 with 73.39 million. In 2020, the global air transport industry was in a downturn, affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. With the gradual effective control of the epidemic in China and the resumption of work and production, domestic air transport recovered. Although the passenger throughput of Baiyun airport in 2020 was 40% lower than in 2019, it surpassed Atlanta’s and became the world’s busiest airport for the first time. Hartsfield-Jackson’s passenger throughput was 42.9 million in 2020, a year-on-year decrease of more than 60%.
Guangzhou Baiyun airport said that its operations were significantly affected by the epidemic at the beginning of last year, as in February passenger flow fell to a “freezing point” of 967,000. But activity started to pick up in March 2020, and the performance continued to improve for 10 consecutive months. In July 2020, the capacity ranked first in China, and during the eight days of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, a total of 1.33 million passengers were welcomed and 10,100 planes took off and landed, a record high since the outbreak of the coronavirus. In November 2020, Baiyun became the only domestic airport to exceed 5 million passengers after the outbreak, the Global Times reports.
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