The 7 Busiest Airports In Florida In 2025

Commercial air travel in Florida has boomed post-pandemic. It is fueled by a surge in leisure travel on both domestic and international routes, as well as by a fast-growing state economy with strong net migration to what is already the third-most populous state in the nation. According to Cirium, Florida air traffic has grown by more than double the US average over the past five years, and today, one in every five US airline seats touches the Sunshine State.

What is interesting is that nearly 95% of commercial traffic in Florida passes through its seven largest airports. Collectively, they are expected to handle more than 200 million passengers in 2025. Yet only one of these is a major airline hub, with the others having intense competition with market share fractured across multiple airlines. So, using Cirium data for flights to/from Florida airports, let’s take a closer look at the seven busiest airports in the Sunshine State in 2025.

7

Jacksonville International Airport

65,046 Flights

Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) has seen strong growth post-pandemic, and last year handled a record 7.6 million passengers. The airport is currently undergoing significant expansion, including the rebuilding of Concourse B, a $440 million project that will add up to 10 new gates. The construction was topped off last month and is expected to open next year, thereby increasing the airport’s capacity by 50%.

American Airlines is the largest carrier at Jacksonville with just over 19,000 flights this year, followed by Delta Air Lines with nearly 17,000. However, the fastest-growing airline is Breeze Airways, which now has 14 routes from the Northeast Florida airport. This includes the airport’s longest route to Los Angeles International Airport, as well as transcontinental routes to Las Vegas and San Diego.

Jacksonville is also an official US Air Force facility and home to the 125th Fighter Wing (125 FW) of the Florida Air National Guard (with the delightful acronym FANG). The 125 FW is currently transitioning from flying McDonnell Douglas F-15 F-15C/D Eagles to its new Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighter jets, with the first permanently assigned F-35As arriving earlier this year.

6

Palm Beach International Airport

65,144 Flights

Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) is perhaps most famous these days as the airport most used by President Trump on his multiple trips away from Washington DC. But as a commercial airport, it has also seen a dramatic surge in post-pandemic leisure travel, with a 27% increase in air traffic over the past couple of years. But a new record of 8.4 million passengers last year has left its mark, with PBI having the second-highest rate for flight delays among major US airports in the first half of 2025 (behind only Newark).

To deal with this, the airport is currently undertaking a $141 million Concourse B expansion. This will add approximately 56,000 additional square feet, including two new passenger boarding bridges, and expanded seating and hold room capacity. In a nod to the airport’s role as a major private aviation facility, Signature Aviation also opened a new 15,700 square foot terminal at PBI earlier this month.

JetBlue is the largest airline at PBI, offering over 17,500 flights in 2025 and commanding a 27% share of the market. It also operates the airport’s longest route to Los Angeles, utilizing an Airbus A321neo fleet which includes its famous Mint service. Delta is the second-largest carrier, operating just over 14,400 flights this year, including ten daily flights to PBI’s busiest destination, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

5

Southwest Florida International Airport

82,442 Flights

Southwest Florida International Airport (PBI) serves the cities of Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Naples, and Punta Gorda, and is the second-busiest single runway airport in the US, after San Diego. It has also seen a surge in passenger traffic, with 11 million passengers passing through its facilities last year, a 10% increase over the prior year. Much of this can be linked to the arrival of Breeze Airways and its rapid expansion to 26 routes from RSW since the airline designated the airport an official “base of operations.”

To cope with this rapid increase in traffic, RSW is going through a $1.1 billion multi-phase terminal expansion project. Phase 1 is focused on remodeling more than 164,000 sq ft, adding 117,000 sq ft of new walkways and concessions, and consolidating TSA checkpoints into a modern 16-lane configuration. Phase 2, which broke ground in March, is the build-out of a new Concourse E, which will initially include 14 gates with infrastructure for up to 19.

Southwest Airlines is the largest carrier at RSW in terms of the number of flights, with over 16,000 in 2025. But Delta, by virtue of using larger aircraft, offers marginally more seats and carries the most passengers to and from RSW. This is also the first airport on the list with a transatlantic route, courtesy of Discover Airlines, the leisure arm of the Lufthansa Group, which flies a twice-weekly connection to Frankfurt Airport using Airbus A330s.

4

Tampa International Airport

182,904 Flights

Tampa International Airport (TPA) comes in fourth on our list, but with a significant jump over the first three, as it offers over 100,000 more flights annually compared to RSW. The airport roared past its pre-pandemic numbers in 2022, and last year served nearly 25 million passengers. This is not just a surge in leisure-based travel, but also due to the fact that Tampa is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the nation.

To support this growth, the airport broke ground on the future Airside D in December last year, a new $1.5 billion, 600,000-square-foot facility. This new 16-gate terminal, TPA’s first new airside in two decades, will handle both international and domestic flights and is scheduled to open in late 2028. Delta has been announced as the anchor tenant, with plans for a new Sky Club lounge.

Southwest is the largest carrier at TPA, with nearly 50,000 annual flights and a 27% market share, while American Airlines is in distant second place with just over 30,000 annual flights. TPA also has five transatlantic routes, including Virgin Atlantic and British Airways to London, Delta to Amsterdam, Discover Airlines to Frankfurt, and the Swiss leisure airline Edelweiss Air, which operates the airport’s longest route to Zurich Airport.

3

Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport

229,230 Flights

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) has long been a major low-cost carrier (LCC) hub. When Southwest started flying to South Florida in the mid-1990s, Fort Lauderdale was the perfect location for its growth strategy. A secondary airport just 30 miles from a major US city, it welcomed the fast-growing LLC and was able to offer plenty of gates to expand rapidly. Southwest set up a base and helped FLL more than double its traffic over the next decade.

But other LCCs took notice, and both Spirit Airlines and JetBlue established bases there in the early 2000s. Spirit went on to overtake Southwest, capturing nearly a third of the market share at its peak, and using FLL as its primary base for an expansive network to the Caribbean and Latin America. In 2025, it is still the largest carrier at Fort Lauderdale with nearly 60,000 flights across the year, ahead of JetBlue, which has 50,000.

But Spirit’s financial difficulties and second bankruptcy are changing all that. As it slashes routes and reduces its fleet size, its operations at FLL are inevitably suffering. While competitors like JetBlue and Frontier Airlines are swooping in to fill the void, it is not enough to cover the cuts. FLL served over 35 million passengers in 2024, but in the first half of 2025, it saw an 11% decline in total passenger volume, largely due to Spirit’s pullbacks, and the second half of the year will likely carry more bad news.

2

Miami International Airport

382,382 Flights

Miami International Airport (MIA) is the only legacy carrier hub in Florida, where American Airlines dominates with two-thirds of the market share. It will operate 250,000 flights to over 155 destinations from MIA in 2025, offering some 40 million seats. Its nearest competitor is Delta, with just 25,000 annual flights. Miami is also the undisputed gateway from the US to Latin America and the Caribbean, with 80–100 unique routes, depending on the season.

A total of 56 million passengers passed through Miami last year, a massive 10 million more than the airport’s pre-pandemic numbers in 2019. The airport also recently became the busiest international cargo airport in the US and the busiest US gateway for international passengers, surpassing New York-JFK Airport. In short, the growth at MIA has ventured beyond impressive to bordering on alarming.

To tackle this, MIA is currently undertaking an ambitious $9 billion “Modernization in Action” (MIA, get it?) program to build for an estimated 77 million passengers by 2040. Coming soon will be a new $600 million Concourse K with additional gates, while extensive terminal renovations include upgrades to over 600 conveyance units (escalators, elevators, and moving walkways), and all 126 passenger boarding bridges.

1

Orlando International Airport

386,616 Flights

Orlando International Airport (MCO) surpassed Miami as Florida’s busiest airport shortly before the pandemic and has maintained that lead as leisure travel has surged since then. The City of Mickey welcomed 57 million passengers last year, some 10 million more than its pre-pandemic numbers, and in 2025 will have a record 386,000 flights to and from the facility.

To keep up with this growth, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority launched a sweeping $6 billion modernization plan earlier this month. This will include upgrading the gate link trams, extensive renovations to Terminals A and B, upgraded baggage handling systems, the introduction of facial recognition technology at screening checkpoints, and substantially expanded parking with 8,000 new spaces. Further down the line, an additional 24 gates are scheduled to open in Terminal C by the end of the decade, and a third terminal (Terminal D) is reportedly in the works.

Southwest Airlines is the largest carrier at MCO with over 100,000 flights in 2025 and an average of a million passengers a month. Delta is a distant second with 44,000 flights this year, although it leads MCO’s biggest air corridor to Atlanta, where it offers up to 15 daily flights. Orlando has also picked up numerous international carriers in recent months, including Air France from Paris, Iberia from Madrid, which started last month, and a new route to Santiago with LATAM, which starts next month.