The world’s busiest single-runway airports – where and what opportunities for expansion?

Those conversant with the multiple runway airports that are hubs in North America, Europe, and to a lesser degree in Asia Pacific, might be led to believe that a single-runway airport is most likely to be found in a small regional city, or an off-the-beaten-track vacation destination.

But that is far from the truth.

Europe's 10th and 12th busiest airports figure in the Top 3 in the list of 46 of the busiest single-runway airports globally, here, along with Asia Pacific's own 14th busiest.

London, the busiest and most complex aviation city hub in the world, has three entries, while the busiest of the lot there manages to make do with two, shining a light on the peculiar way in which the UK handles flight activity in its capital city.

Meanwhile, there is a single 'low cost' airport in the list, suggesting that those airports that specialise in that model will never grow to any significant size, while one of only two identifiable vacation airports (with more inward traffic than outward) secures the 12th place in the listing.

There are many takeaways from this list, but the main one is that the cost of an additional runway, which will never bring in additional traffic rapidly, is always a very long term investment; maybe, in many cases - too much to bear, and therefore to justify.