what

[chiller]

servus leute,!!!!!!!;what

[eno]

What do you mean by biggest?... Most flights ... largest number of runways .. largest area covered?

cheers
eno

[Nexus]

biggest in size must be the King Khalid International in Saudi - Arabia. It covers more than 22.000 acres.
But take-off and landing ratio must be the Hartsfield in Atlanta?

[Hagar]

I did a quick search on Google. This might answer your question.

It is worth putting this into the context of understanding just exactly what is meant by terms such as "biggest", "busiest", or "busiest international", as is often applied to Heathrow.

The Biggest Airport in the World
Taken literally as the airport which takes up the most land mass, this is the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It takes up some 81 square miles - an area larger than many cities.

Trivia: This airport has four terminals, yet only three have ever been used.

The second biggest airport in the world is Denver International, which takes up 53 square miles.

By comparison, London Heathrow takes up around 3,000 acres, or just 4.7 square miles.

The Busiest Airport in the World
This depends on whether you monitor aircraft movements (the numbers of take-offs and landings), or passenger numbers. An airport such as Washington National may have relatively high aircraft movements, but as the largest aircraft it handles is a Boeing 757, it handles relatively fewer annual passengers than other airports with similar movements.

Movements and passenger numbers are both acceptable methods of determining the "busiest" airport, although passenger numbers is the generally quoted figure.

Most Passenger numbers
Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson is the busiest airport in the world, handling 76.7 million passengers in 2002. Atlanta overtook Chicago O'Hare in 1998, and is now significantly ahead. Chicago handled 66.6 million passengers in 2002.

Busiest International Airport
London Heathrow handles the most international passengers (as opposed to passengers on domestic flights, which make up the majority of traffic at US airports). On an overall scale, Heathrow ranks third behind Atlanta and Chicago.

Busiest City (all airports)
When the flights from all airports in a city are combined, London is the busiest aviation centre in the world.

Only London, Tokyo and New York have two airports in the top 30 worldwide.

Combining New York's JFK (29 943 084) and Newark (29 202 654 ) still does not reach the same level as London Heathrow. Despite being the major international gateway for Japan, Tokyo Narita (28 883 606) is overshadowed by the mainly domestic Haneda (61 079 478 ). This puts Tokyo on a relatively even keel with Heathrow (63 338 641) and Gatwick (29 628 423).

When Stansted (18 750 000), Luton (6 500 000), and London City (1 500 000) are added on top, London handles a total of almost 120 million passengers annually.

Source: World airports Council , BAA, Luton Airport, London City Airport

http://www.flightmapping.com/news/Coventry-Airport/Biggest-busiest-airports.asp

[pete]

Slightly british biased on any 'BAA' resource.  ::)

Check out international organisations

such as

http://www.airports.org/

WWW search always a good start to questions like this. ..

[Craig.]

memphis is the busiest cargo airport in the world
Or has been for many years havent seen the numbers this year.
I know what real relevance does this have, but the main question answered and now going to numbers and so on. LOL

[YodaNYC]

KATL is definitely the busiest airport I have ever traveled through...sometimes the security lines there are never ending!

[chiller]

thx all!!! but what

[chiller]

sorry, i mean where is it, and i search the airport with the most start -and landing runways ok? !!!

[Nexus]

KATL is the ICAO code for Atlanta Hartsfield Intl.

[Craig.]

atlanta hartsfield jacksons intl airport Nexus
LOL sorry had to.
As for travelling through it. Never again, it is a god awful airport you dont leave, you escape.

[MichaelPhillips]

O'Hare is the busiest.  In The US, Denver Intl is the largest. Denver is quite large, they really over did it when expanding...  What happens if United goes bankrupt? That airport won't need all that space.  ???

[Nexus]

Okay, Hartsfield handles most passengers, but O'Hare has more departures per year, just checked my aviation guide

[Meyekul]

I've been through KATL four times and I've always found it to be fairly pleasant.  I've only been through once since 9/11 though, and I just had a short layover there, so I didnt have to go through security.  They have a good selection of food and stores there if you need to kill time, and train service if you're in a hurry.  They have multiple indoor smoking areas, so smokers dont have to fight thru security more than once per visit.  Just personal opinion, but I think its a very nice airport, definately one of my favorites.

[goodfella]

Hagar is right. In terms of international flights, Heathrow is the busiest in the world. American airports handle mainly domestic flights but once Heathrows terminal 5 is built in a couple of years, the number of flights landing and departing will increase even more so. London is also the busiest airspace in the world. You can get a good idea if you've installed all the Project AI traffic into flight sim and tryed to leave or land at Heathrow. I've been waiting over an hour just to take off and thats with both runways in use. Perhaps I should lower my traffic percentage?