4 ms·

Will it be busier than Atlanta's airport, the busiest airport in the world? Biggest doesn't mean a thing, although Atlanta's airport is also huge. Smallest an

Will it be busier than Atlanta's airport, the busiest airport in the world? Biggest doesn't mean a thing, although Atlanta's airport is also huge. Smallest and busiest would be much more impressive.

wkat4242 3y ago
Why is Atlanta so big I wonder? It's not a huge city right? Is there a lot of transfers or something? I've never been to the US :)
- skinner927 3y ago
  It’s not a small city, but the volume of traffic the airport has to handle is because it’s a transfer hub. Atlanta is a 2hr flight from 80% of the US population (not geographically).
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    Plus all of the Caribbean islands. And close enough to make it as a transfer to Latin America as well
- jhbadger 3y ago
  It's the hub for Delta (one of the major US airlines).
  - fddrdplktrew 3y ago
    > It's the hub for Delta (one of the major US airlines). I think Delta is the largest airline in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_airlines_in_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_airlines_in_the_world They have so many huge buildings near/in that airport its crazy
- crote 3y ago
  It's the hub-and-spoke model. For n cities, there are n^2 possible connections. Most of these will see hardly any traffic, so a direct flight would only happen once a week or so. With hub-and-spoke, everyone coming from Small City A will fly on the same quite-frequent flight to Atlanta, regardless of their intended destination. In Atlanta they'll all transfer to their own flights, going back to the individual smaller cities.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    And ATL weather almost never causes flights to be disrupted.
bbatha 3y ago
It probably has to serve a much larger burst passenger capacity than Atlanta given that it like most Saudi mega projects needs to serve the ever increasing needs of the annual Hadj. However the other 11 months of the year will look like a podunk regional airport.
glompers 3y ago
It won't be. Dubai Int'l and Istanbul were both also built by their governments to be the largest in the world and are already open. Per wikipedia neither has come anywhere close to ATL so far -- 66 and 64 million as compared to 93.7 million passengers in 2022 -- although much closer than most normal airports of course. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_...

Will it be busier than Atlanta's airport, the busiest airport in the world? Biggest doesn't mean a thing, although Atlanta's airport is also huge. Smallest and busiest would be much more impressive.

wkat4242 3y ago

Why is Atlanta so big I wonder? It's not a huge city right? Is there a lot of transfers or something? I've never been to the US :)

skinner927 3y ago
It’s not a small city, but the volume of traffic the airport has to handle is because it’s a transfer hub. Atlanta is a 2hr flight from 80% of the US population (not geographically).
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  Plus all of the Caribbean islands. And close enough to make it as a transfer to Latin America as well
jhbadger 3y ago
It's the hub for Delta (one of the major US airlines).
- fddrdplktrew 3y ago
  > It's the hub for Delta (one of the major US airlines). I think Delta is the largest airline in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_airlines_in_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_airlines_in_the_world They have so many huge buildings near/in that airport its crazy
crote 3y ago
It's the hub-and-spoke model. For n cities, there are n^2 possible connections. Most of these will see hardly any traffic, so a direct flight would only happen once a week or so. With hub-and-spoke, everyone coming from Small City A will fly on the same quite-frequent flight to Atlanta, regardless of their intended destination. In Atlanta they'll all transfer to their own flights, going back to the individual smaller cities.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  And ATL weather almost never causes flights to be disrupted.

bbatha 3y ago

It probably has to serve a much larger burst passenger capacity than Atlanta given that it like most Saudi mega projects needs to serve the ever increasing needs of the annual Hadj. However the other 11 months of the year will look like a podunk regional airport.

glompers 3y ago

It won't be. Dubai Int'l and Istanbul were both also built by their governments to be the largest in the world and are already open. Per wikipedia neither has come anywhere close to ATL so far -- 66 and 64 million as compared to 93.7 million passengers in 2022 -- although much closer than most normal airports of course. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_...