# Busiest airports...why U.S.?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busiest-airports-why-u-s/381522>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 23, 2006, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busiest-airports-why-u-s/381522 "2006-11-23T04:37:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![wisernow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@wisernow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wisernow)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busiest-airports-why-u-s/381522/21 "2006-11-23T21:49:50Z")

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Atlanta is the hub for two major domestic carriers- Delta(also international in this case) and Airtran. The “busiest” tag comes from the number of passengers passing thro the airport. Being a hub, the two airlines carry passengers from all over first to Atlanta and then put them on connecting flights out to wherever they are eventually headed. That is what causes such a large number of passengers to walk through Hartsfield.

Second as as been said by others many other large cities have more than one airport. If you were to combine the trafiic thro all the the airports for a particular city and then make a comparison, I am not quite sure Atlanta would qualify as the “busiest”.

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**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2006, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/busiest-airports-why-u-s/381522/22 "2006-11-24T09:52:34Z")

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[QUOTE=GorillaMan]  
Yes, not least because they get to include the dozens of fifty-minute hops to Dublin in the total. :rolleyes:

[/QUOTE]

Long-haul, eh? Brussels is about half an hour 😃

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