South Korean capital city Seoul's Incheon International Airport has said it has overtaken Dubai this year to become the world's busiest airport by international passengers. The move comes as the Middle East hub has seen a drop in passenger traffic due to the Iran war, the Financial Times reports.

The South Korean hub said it handled 38.4 million international passengers in the first six months of 2026, overtaking London’s Heathrow and Singapore’s Changi.

Last year, Incheon ranked third in terms of international traffic, behind Dubai and Heathrow. Singapore’s Changi, Amsterdam Schiphol and Istanbul Airport followed. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson remained the world’s busiest airport overall, reflecting its large domestic passenger volumes.

Preliminary data from the Airports Council International (ACI) showed that Dubai had fallen out of the top five due to a sharp decline in arrivals. The ACI said the figures were subject to a "final validation" and the official report will be published next month.

Dubai’s traffic fell sharply after the Iran conflict began in late February and the airport was almost entirely closed in the immediate aftermath. Emirates resumed flights within days, but passenger volumes have yet to return to prewar levels.

International passenger traffic through Dubai dropped to 2.5 million in March from 7.4 million in February, according to the ACI data. It recovered to about 4.7 million in June.

Amid the crisis, European and Asian airlines have seen a surge in passengers choosing to fly direct between the two regions rather than make stopovers in the Middle East. Incheon has benefited directly from this trend, with an increase in the number of travelers flying to South Korea and then onward to other countries in the region.

The number of passengers transiting through Incheon on connecting flights from Europe rose by two-thirds in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year.

As the transit function of Middle Eastern airports such as Dubai has been weakened due to the US-Iran conflict, traditional demand for flights via Dubai, including routes between Europe and the Middle East, has been reoriented towards direct and connecting flights via Incheon Airport, the latter said in a statement.

In addition to geopolitical factors, South Korea is experiencing a large-scale tourism boom. This is due to the increase in the number of visitors from China and Japan, the popularity of South Korean pop culture—including the recent success of the KPop film Demon Hunters, as well as the rapid development of the beauty industry and the technology sector.