Delhi airport ranked 5th-busiest in Apac last year, shows OAG data

Delhi airport has seen a significant upward move in the pecking order on the list of top-10 most-busiest airports in Asia Pacific (Apac) region from pre-Covid 2019 compared to its performance in calendar year 2025 (CY25).

 

In 2025, according to aviation data platform OAG, Delhi airport ranked 5th, with 46.18 million seats, after a dramatic leap from the 9th position, which it held in 2019. India’s surging domestic demand, followed by aggressive capacity growth led by IndiGo, has propelled Delhi in the upper tier of the pecking order.

 

As a result, in the last six years since 2019, Delhi has overtaken several well-known airports in the region, including Bangkok Suvarnbhumi (seat capacity of 39.49 million in 2025), Singapore Changi (42.57 million), and Seoul Incheon (43.40 million) of South Korea. All of them where much busier than Delhi in 2019.

 

Not only that, Delhi has also closed in on Beijing Capital, which was the busiest airport in the region in 2019, with a gap of only 31,000 departing seats in 2025. Beijing airport saw a meltdown in the pandemic and has now settled in the fourth place with 46.21 million seats.

 

With new capacity expansion by airport operator GMR in Delhi, having plans to increase capacity by 30 per cent in five years, aviation experts project that it will certainly surpass Beijing in 2026. The redistribution of traffic from Beijing Capital to the Beijing Daxing International airport, which took off in 2019, has been a key cause of the former airport’s slowdown in growth.

 

OAG calculated the busiest airports based on the number of one-way departing seats from the airport for the year.

 

But while Beijing Capital has lost out its numero uno position to Tokyo Haneda airport, which has moved up from second position in 2019 to the top, handling 55.35 million departing seats. Beijing has also conceded its position to Shanghai Pudong Airport, which is now at number two, handling 51.1 million seats. This airport is now the largest in China. And at the third spot is another Chinese airport, Guangzhou Baiyun, with 50.2 million seats. OAG pointed out that traditional heavyweights like Shanghai have lost out because of infrastructural constraints.

 

What is interesting is that despite Beijing’s airports falling from the top, four Chinese airports are on the top-10 list in Asia Pacific. And as many as three airports from Asia Pacific — Tokyo Haneda, Shanghai Pudong, and Guanzhou — have also made it to the global top-10 busiest airports list in the world too.