Two Spanish airports have risen in the European ranking of international connectivity. The survey is conducted annually by aviation data agency OAG. It looks at all possible connections at an airport on the busiest day of the year.
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airports are among the 50 best connected airports or ‘megahubs’ in the world, ranking 27th and 41st respectively according to the OAG Megahubs Index 2023.
The Madrid airport rises one place from the 2019 ranking, with Iberia the dominant airline operating 49% of flights. El Prat, the airport in Barcelona is up four places. Vueling operates the largest number of flights there with 43%.
Global airport rankings
In OAG’s global ranking this year, London Heathrow tops the list as the world’s most connected megahub. It is followed by;
- John F. Kennedy International Airport (US)
- Amsterdam Schiphol (Netherlands)
- Kuala Lumpur International Airport (Malaysia)
- Haneda International Airport (Japan)
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Istanbul (Turkey),
- Incheon International Airport (South Korea)
- Paris-Charles de Gaulle (France)
- Chicago O’Hare International Airport (US)
These round off the top 10.
The top 20 global megahubs are evenly distributed across regions with six in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), six in North America and seven in Asia-Pacific. The presence of seven Asian hubs in the global top 20 is “significant” given that the region is still on the road to recovery, the report said.
Spain in European rankings
In addition, the OAG study also compiled rankings by continent. In the European rankings, Madrid-Barajas airport ranks seventh and Barcelona El Prat closes the top 10.
This is how the rankings are compiled
The ranking is compiled by looking at all possible connections between scheduled flights on the busiest aviation day of the year (11 August), and in the busiest month (August). This takes into account the airport’s minimum transfer time and a maximum transfer time of six hours. In addition, at least one of the two flights to be transferred between must be an international flight.
