For the 14th consecutive year, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport won the Top Efficiency Excellence Award from the Air Transport Research Society.
This award evaluates airport productivity, operational efficiency and cost competitiveness, indicating that Atlanta — the busiest airport in the United States — delivers strong value to travelers while operating with notable effectiveness.
The assessment covered 206 airports and appears in the latest Global Airport Benchmarking Report, which used data collected in 2015.
Among the lower-ranked airports in the study were New York’s LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The report organizes airports into 24 categories by region and annual passenger volume. In 2015, Atlanta handled 101 million passengers, roughly 20 million more than the next-busiest airport, Chicago O’Hare International.
Category winners included Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport for the 25–40 million passengers range, and Vancouver International Airport for the 10–25 million passengers range.
Kahului Airport on Maui received the award for the most efficient and competitive airport serving fewer than 10 million travelers annually.
Other high-performing international airports named in the report included Athens International Airport, Jeju International Airport in South Korea, and Sydney International Airport in Australia.
By highlighting operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness across a broad set of airports, the benchmarking report offers a useful reference for travelers, airport managers and industry analysts seeking to compare performance and identify best practices in airport operations.