The Busiest Airports Named After Famous People

The busiest airport named after a famous person is Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, which handled 106,302,208 passengers in 2025. It is also the busiest airport on Earth by any measure, and it carries the names of two Atlanta mayors.

This list ranks the world’s person-named airports by total passengers in calendar year 2025, using Airports Council International’s final figures. That is a real measure rather than a popularity contest, and it produces an order that most lists of this kind get wrong.

It also arrives at an unusual moment. On August 28, 2026, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and Nashville International Airport announced a plan to name BNA in honor of Dolly Parton, which would create the busiest entertainer-named airport in the world overnight.

1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL)

Atlanta moved 106,302,208 passengers in 2025, more than any other airport in the world, and roughly 11 million more than second-placed Dubai. It has held the global top spot for most of the past three decades.

The name honors two men. William B. Hartsfield was the mayor who fought to turn a disused racetrack into Atlanta’s airfield, and the field took his name in 1971 after his death.

Maynard Jackson, the city’s first Black mayor and the driving force behind the midfield terminal that opened in 1980, was added in 2003, four months after he died. The city council originally intended to drop Hartsfield’s name entirely, and public opposition produced the hyphenated compromise the airport still carries.

2. Chicago O’Hare International (ORD)

O’Hare handled 84,856,018 passengers in 2025, up 6.0% on the year, which made it the third busiest airport in the United States behind Atlanta and Dallas Fort Worth. It is the only US airport that serves as a hub for two of the country’s three major network carriers, United and American.

Edward “Butch” O’Hare was the US Navy’s first flying ace of the Second World War and a Medal of Honor recipient, killed in action in 1943. Chicago renamed its Orchard Field for him in 1949.

3. Indira Gandhi International, Delhi (DEL)

Delhi handled 78,148,081 passengers in 2025, making it the eleventh busiest airport in the world and the busiest in India by a wide margin. Growth was almost flat that year, at 0.4%, after a decade of rapid expansion.

The airport was renamed for Indira Gandhi in 1986, two years after India’s first and so far only female prime minister was assassinated by her own bodyguards. It is the busiest airport in the world named after a woman.

4. Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG)

Charles de Gaulle handled 72,029,407 passengers in 2025, which made it Europe’s second busiest airport behind London Heathrow and comfortably the busiest in continental Europe. It is the primary hub for Air France and a major long-haul gateway between Europe and Africa.

The airport opened in 1974, four years after the death of the general who led the Free French in the Second World War and later served as president. Unusually for this list, it was named for de Gaulle from the day it opened rather than renamed later.

5. Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas (MAD)

Madrid handled 68,118,754 passengers in 2025, up 3.0%, and it is the busiest airport in Spain and the main European gateway to Latin America. Barajas is the district it sits in, which is why the old place name survives alongside the new personal one.

Adolfo Suarez was Spain’s first democratically elected prime minister after Franco, and the airport took his name in 2014, weeks after his death. It is one of the fastest renamings on this list.

6. John F. Kennedy International, New York (JFK)

JFK handled 62,629,455 passengers in 2025 and reclaimed the title of busiest airport in the New York region, ahead of Newark and LaGuardia. August 2026 was its busiest single month on record, with more than 6.2 million passengers.

The airport opened as Idlewild and was renamed for President Kennedy in December 1963, a month after his assassination. That speed set the template: most of the airports on this list were renamed within a few years of the namesake’s death.

It is probably the most recognizable person-named airport in the world, though recognition and passenger experience are different things. For how American travelers actually rate the big hubs, see our ranking of the worst airports in the United States.

7. Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat (BCN)

Barcelona handled 57,483,036 passengers in 2025, which put it inside the world’s 30 busiest airports and made it Spain’s second busiest after Madrid.

Josep Tarradellas led the Catalan government in exile through the Franco years and returned in 1977 to restore it. The airport took his name in 2019, more than 30 years after his death, one of the longest gaps on this list.

8. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International, Mumbai (BOM)

Mumbai handled roughly 55.5 million passengers in 2025, second in India behind Delhi, and it does it on a single main runway crossed by a second, one of the most constrained major airfields anywhere.

Shivaji founded the Maratha Empire in the 17th century. That makes him by far the oldest namesake in the top 15, honored roughly 350 years after his death when the airport was renamed in 1999, with the honorific “Maharaj” added later.

9. Harry Reid International, Las Vegas (LAS)

Las Vegas handled 54,989,185 passengers in 2025, an extraordinary figure for a metro area its size and the clearest example on this list of an airport built by tourism rather than by population or connecting traffic.

It is also the newest name in the top 15. The Clark County Commission voted unanimously in February 2021 to drop the name of Senator Pat McCarran, citing his record of antisemitism and racism, and the airport became Harry Reid International in December 2021.

10. Soekarno-Hatta International, Jakarta (CGK)

Jakarta handled roughly 54.95 million passengers in 2025 and is Southeast Asia’s busiest airport for domestic traffic, feeding an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands where flying is often the only practical option.

The name honors Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, who jointly proclaimed Indonesian independence in 1945 and became the country’s first president and vice president. It is one of only two airports in the top 15 named for two people, alongside Atlanta.

11. King Abdulaziz International, Jeddah (JED)

Jeddah handled roughly 53.4 million passengers in 2025. Its traffic profile is unlike anything else on this list, because it is the main entry point for the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages to Mecca and runs a dedicated pilgrim terminal for the purpose.

King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud founded modern Saudi Arabia in 1932. The airport opened in May 1981 already carrying his name, and its original Hajj Terminal, a tented structure designed to hold 80,000 pilgrims at once, won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1983.

12. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila (MNL)

Manila handled roughly 52 million passengers in 2025 and is the busiest airport in the Philippines, handling most of the country’s international traffic from a cramped site hemmed in by the city.

Its story is the darkest on this list. Opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was shot dead on the tarmac of this airport in August 1983 as he returned from exile, and the Philippine Congress renamed the airport for him in 1987.

13. Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino, Rome (FCO)

Rome handled 50,872,356 passengers in 2025 and is Italy’s busiest airport by a wide margin, as well as one of the few in Europe to have grown consistently since 2019.

It is also the single most interesting name on the list, because Leonardo is the only person in the top 15 who was not a politician, a monarch, or a soldier. He earns the airport on aviation grounds: his notebooks contain the first serious European attempts to design a flying machine, roughly 400 years before anyone managed it.

14. Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen (SAW)

Istanbul’s second airport handled 48,420,757 passengers in 2025, which is remarkable for a secondary field. It sits on the Asian side of the city and is the base for Pegasus Airlines and AJet, and it would rank as a major hub in almost any other country.

Sabiha Gokcen was the adopted daughter of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s first female fighter pilot. The airport opened under her name in January 2001, while she was still alive.

15. George Bush Intercontinental, Houston (IAH)

Houston handled 48,131,213 passengers in 2025 and is United Airlines’ primary gateway to Latin America. It closes out the top 15 by about 800,000 passengers over Toronto Pearson, named for Nobel Peace Prize winner and Canadian prime minister Lester B. Pearson, which handled roughly 47.3 million.

Houston Intercontinental was renamed for George H. W. Bush in 1997, while the former president was alive and living in the city. He died in 2018.

Politicians get the big airports. Entertainers almost never do.

Run down the top 15 and the pattern is impossible to miss. Fourteen of the 15 are named after presidents, prime ministers, mayors, senators, monarchs, or military figures.

Leonardo da Vinci is the sole exception. Sabiha Gokcen comes closest to being a second, and she earned her airport in a cockpit rather than a concert hall. Not one of the world’s 15 busiest person-named airports is named after a musician, an actor, or a writer.

The pattern holds below the top 15 too. Ronald Reagan Washington National handled just under 24.9 million passengers in 2025, down 5.3% on the year, and Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International handled 18.4 million, a 33% rebound after a badly disrupted 2024. Both are named after heads of government.

Entertainer-named airports exist, but they are small. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International handled 12.4 million passengers in 2025, John Wayne Airport in Orange County handled about 11.4 million, and Liverpool John Lennon Airport set a record with just over 5.6 million.

Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport is smaller still, though it carries the most pointed story: Rogers, the humorist and film star, died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935. Burbank went the other way and dropped Bob Hope’s name in favor of Hollywood Burbank Airport.

That scarcity is exactly why the Nashville proposal became a national story within 48 hours.

Nashville would rewrite this list

Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at 80. A Change.org petition to rename Nashville International Airport in her honor had been running quietly since January 2025, and it surged past 130,000 signatures within days.

On August 28, Governor Bill Lee and the airport announced a plan to act on it. “At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world, it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state’s favorite daughter,” Lee said. The Metro Nashville Airport Authority takes up the naming policy and the proposal at its September 17 meeting.

Parton’s team said it appreciates the outpouring of support, is touched by the idea, and is open to further discussion.

The numbers make the case. BNA handled 25,715,851 passengers in calendar 2025, a record, and 26.7 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026.

It would not crack this list’s top 15, which starts at 48 million. But it would be one of the 20 busiest airports in the United States, and it would be the first time an airport of that size anywhere in the world took the name of a singer.

The names that changed most recently

Airport names are less permanent than they look. Las Vegas dropped Pat McCarran in 2021, Barcelona added Josep Tarradellas in 2019, and Burbank removed Bob Hope in 2017.

The most recent change is also the most unusual. On July 9, 2026, Palm Beach International in Florida became President Donald J. Trump International Airport, the first US airport named after a sitting president. Its IATA code changed from PBI to DJT on August 18, 2026.

The airport handled 8,657,372 passengers in the 12 months to December 2025, so it sits well outside the top 15 by traffic. Florida legislation signed by Governor Ron DeSantis made the change possible.

For a different way of measuring the same airports, our rankings of the busiest airports in the world by flights per day and the airports serving the most destinations both reorder this list substantially. Passenger volume rewards big aircraft and long-haul hubs; movements and destinations reward connectivity.

Within the United States alone, the picture is different again, and our list of the busiest airports in the US shows how many of the top American fields carry no personal name at all.