Athens Airport Among Europe’s Top 10 Most Connected Megahubs

Athens International Airport (AIA) is one of Europe’s 10 Airport Megahubs, according to the Megahubs Index 2023 recently released by leading data platform for the global travel industry, OAG.

To compile the list, OAG analyzed flight data for the 100 largest airports in the world (based on total scheduled seats in August 2023) and at the largest 100 international airports on the busiest day – Friday 11 August 2023 – for global aviation in the last year (September 2022 – August 2023).

In addition, it calculated the total number of all possible connections between inbound and outbound flights at these airports within a six-hour window (where either the inbound, outbound, or both flights are international).

According to the index, the Greek capital’s airport ranked 9th in Europe’s 10 Airport Megahubs list, with its dominant carrier, Aegean Airlines, managing 34 percent of its flights. In 2019, the airport ranked 56th.

Source:OAG.

Overall in Europe, London Heathrow Airport (LHR) remained in the #1 position while Amsterdam ‘s main airport climbed to 2nd place, moving up from 4th place in 2019. The Frankfurt, Istanbul and Paris (CDG) airports rounded up the top 5.

Top 50 Global Airport Megahubs

OAG also issued the Top 50 Global Airport Megahubs list, where London Heathrow Airport (LHR) also retained the top spot.

New York’s JFK Airport (JFK) followed 2nd, moving up the rankings considerably, from 18th position in 2019.

The major European airport hubs – Amsterdam (AMS) (3rd), Frankfurt (FRA) (6th) and Paris (CDG) (9th) – joined London Heathrow (LHR) in the Top 10 Global Megahubs. Istanbul (IST) also made it into the top 10 in 7th place, having ranked 17 in 2019.

Kuala Lumpur Airport (KUL), which followed Amsterdam (AMS) on the global list, also ranked 1st in the regional Asia-Pasific list and in the Low-Cost Megahubs index with 11,188 possible low-cost connections across over 100 destinations.