Even as Indians around the country were confounded over the status of their government-approved flights in various cities, there’s another, more welcome chaos, in an airport in a rather more remote corner of the world.
Alaska’s Anchorage International Airport, tucked equidistantly between New York and Tokyo, has become the busiest airport in the world, at least on most Saturdays since the COVID-19 pandemic has ground airlines all over the planet.
With more than a 90 per cent drop in passenger traffic globally, the one segment still keeping its head above the clouds is air cargo.
With Anchorage already boasting the world’s fifth-busiest cargo operations, and a growing demand for home-delivered goods, on Saturdays, which have always been the heaviest cargo day for the relatively unknown airport, they are the busiest airport in the world.
Airport manager Jim Szczesniak said in an interview with CNN, “There are more airplanes in the sky right now to and from Anchorage than there are for both JFK and LaGuardia.”