China's Guangzhou airport crowns itself the world's busiest for 2020

Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport declared on Monday that it had become the busiest among its global peers in 2020. Airports Council International ranked the southern Chinese airport 11th in 2019. While it has yet to announce 2020 rankings, China is one of the few countries to mark a recovery in domestic air travel, at a time when other major economies are still suffering from a slump in travel demand. While Guangzhou's population is significantly smaller than those of Shanghai and Beijing, they have multiple major airports while it has just one. Guangzhou Baiyun handled 43.768m passengers last year, which was 40.4% lower than a year ago. However, the decline was much steeper for its peers, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which saw a fall of 61.2% to 42.918m last year, after holding the crown as the world's busiest for over two decades. Guangzhou's rise to the top is driven by a resurgence in domestic air travel demand. While there were 86% fewer passengers on international routes in 2020, the drop in domestic passengers -- comprising 94% of the total -- was only 24.7% from a year before. On a monthly basis, it has been increasing year-on-year since September. On its official Weibo site, the airport attributed its strong performance to "China's capability to effectively control the pandemic," which allowed the swift recovery of business activities.<br/>