Heathrow has lost its pre-pandemic position as the world’s top connected airport.
The London hub, which imposed a capacity cap this summer due to staff shortages, has dropped down the world’s rankings of the airline industry’s megahubs to 22nd position.
A trio of US airports now lead the way as being the top internationally connected, with Chicago O’Hare having 66 international destinations, followed by Dallas/Fort Worth and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson.
Heathrow has also been overtaken by Mexico City Juarez international airport, the highest ranked non-US mega hub in a top 50 complied by global aviation data group OAG.
The new insight into how ongoing travel disruptions are affecting global connectivity shows that while Heathrow held onto its first-place ranking among European hubs, its global position dropped.
The OAG report said: “While Heathrow has maintained almost the same number of destinations served as it had in 2019, the number of possible connections on the busiest day has fallen by 40% as a result of schedule reductions which particularly affected high-frequency short-haul routes.”
Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt airport suffered similar drops, falling out of the top ten to 27th and 30th positions respectively.
The most connected megahub in Asia Pacific is Delhi’s Indira Gandhi airport followed by Tokyo Haneda and Sydney as Hong Kong fell out of the top 50.
Mumbai airport is ranked in sixth place in Asia Pacific as Singapore Changi airport dropped to 12th place.
OAG calculates an airport’s connectivity by an index of the total number of possible international flight connections between inbound and outbound services within a certain time frame.
OAG chief analyst John Grant said: “The global market has yet to fully recover post-pandemic.
“While the US currently dominates due to its strong domestic market, we could see Europe and other global hubs catch up in the next 12 months as the industry works towards a full recovery.”