The World's Busiest Airports: Denver Takes First on 794 Departures and Ends Dallas's Run

The top 30 busiest airports for March 2024 are out, on the same measure as the two previous months: planned average daily scheduled passenger departures, counting scheduled passenger flights only and excluding cargo and charters. Denver took first place on 794 departures, ending Dallas/Fort Worth's two months at the top. Delhi returned to the top ten, Las Vegas climbed 13 places, and LaGuardia, Mumbai, Changi, Seattle and Newark all entered the top 30.

The reshuffling was the heaviest so far this year. The table measures plan, not outcome — what airlines scheduled to fly in March, rather than what operated or how many people were carried. Weather, technical issues and flow control sit between the two, so the ranking is a good guide to intent and a poor one to performance.

1. Denver takes first, and Dallas's run ends

The top ten as listed in the ranking table (average daily departures):

Denver (DEN) rose from third to first on 794 departures, up two places. It is United's most important hub in the western United States, with a domestic network covering the Mountain West and the Pacific coast, and March coincides with spring break at many American schools, which lifts the departure count. Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) slipped to second on 783, ending two months in first place; Atlanta (ATL) moved up to third on 722 and Chicago O'Hare (ORD) down to fourth on 710.

By country the top 30 is even more lopsided than in February: 15 in the United States (Denver, Dallas, Atlanta, O'Hare, Charlotte, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, Houston, Miami, LaGuardia, Kennedy, Seattle and Newark), five in China (Pudong, Baiyun, Bao'an, Capital and Tianfu), two in Europe (Heathrow and Schiphol), two in India (Delhi and Mumbai) and six elsewhere. Half the table being American is not a picture of world air traffic; it is what this particular measure produces.

2. Delhi returns to the top ten, Phoenix climbs six

Delhi's Indira Gandhi airport (DEL) is seventh on 563, up four places. Istanbul pushed it out of the top ten in February and it is back a month later — repeated crossings of that threshold usually mean an airport is sitting right on the line.

Tokyo Haneda (HND) is sixth on 585, up two. Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX) is eighth on 555, up another six places after seven in February: two months of rapid climbing in a row.

3. Las Vegas jumps thirteen, Amsterdam and Istanbul fall back

Las Vegas McCarran (LAS) is 12th on 499, up 13 places from February and the month's biggest climber; for a city built on conventions and tourism, that much seasonal swing in departures is normal.

The falls are just as sharp. Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) dropped to 22nd on 409, down ten places, and Istanbul (IST) to 20th on 426, down eleven. Both are connecting hubs whose departures follow airline seasonal planning closely, so a ten-place slide over a month is more likely a scheduling shift than a collapse in demand.

4. Five new faces: LaGuardia, Mumbai, Changi, Seattle, Newark

The bottom of the table changed over: LaGuardia (LGA) is 25th on 405, Mumbai (BOM) 26th on 402, Singapore Changi (SIN) 27th on 399, Seattle-Tacoma (SEA) 29th on 394 and Newark (EWR) 30th on 389 — all five were outside the top 30 a month earlier.

Changi's appearance is worth a note. The airport lives on long-haul international flying, with plenty of widebodies, but its departure count is lower than that of a dense American domestic hub, which is why it usually trails its passenger ranking in a table like this; this is the first time in months it has made the top 30 on scheduled capacity. New York, meanwhile, has three airports in the list at once: LaGuardia 25th, Kennedy (JFK) 28th and Newark 30th.

5. After the Spring Festival: China's seasonal curve

The Chinese airports all moved down. Guangzhou Baiyun (CAN) fell from 722 departures in February to 527, dropping five places to tenth; Shanghai Pudong (PVG) went from 680 to 554, down two to ninth; Chengdu Tianfu (TFU) is 23rd on 407, down six, and Beijing Capital (PEK) 19th on 443, down one.

The timing fits the holiday calendar. February's Spring Festival travel rush pushed domestic capacity to its annual peak, and March returns to normal, so departures fall back; American airports, meanwhile, move into spring break. That seasonal mismatch is a more useful thing to read from a monthly table than any claim about which airport is stronger.

The same numbers produce a counter-example at the other end: Paris Charles de Gaulle, a new entry in February, dropped out of the top 30 in March. European schedules swing widely at the turn of the season, so a month inside or outside the list means little.

6. The limits of a monthly table

A monthly departure table shows how capacity was distributed at one moment, not what an airport is like. The northern summer schedule begins in late March, airlines redistribute capacity for it — more transatlantic frequencies, denser short-haul flying around the Mediterranean — and April's table usually looks different again.

That is why month-to-month comparisons need care. Only two members of February's top ten left in March — Istanbul and Los Angeles, replaced by Delhi and Phoenix — which reads like a shift in strength but is mostly the rhythm of seasons and holidays at work.

For a traveller, the ranking is still a measure of frequency: the denser the schedule, the more timings to choose from and the more room to rebook after a delay. It says nothing about fares, punctuality or how easy a connection is, so the decision still comes down to a specific flight and a specific connection time.

Note: this is a 2024 monthly snapshot. For a later view, see World's Ten Busiest Airports (February 2026, by seats) and World Airport Passenger Traffic (full-year 2025).

Related links

• On this site: Chicago O'Hare (ORD), Atlanta (ATL), Los Angeles (LAX), Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS), Singapore Changi (SIN), Kennedy (JFK), LaGuardia (LGA), Newark (EWR), United States (US)
• Wikipedia: Denver International Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
• Baidu Baike: Denver International Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

Image and data source: Xiaohu Aviation Analysis, "March 2024: the world's busiest airports". Departure counts are planned daily averages and differ from what was flown; schedules change with the season, so check the airport's and the airline's own sites before you travel.