New York" 3 major international airports welcomed their 100 millionth passenger in 2006. The figure was so nearly reached in 2005 but stopped at 99.8 million at the New Year eve.
The lucky and honoured passenger was Liang Chen of Taiwan, who arrived on a flight from Hong Kong and proceeded to be showered with gifts from airport officials. This particular passenger is now considered to be symbolic of New York"s recovery from the attacks of 5 years ago. The destruction of the Twin Towers along with attacks on the Pentagon had destroyed public faith in the airline industry and numbers of passengers plummeted.
Despite the fact that New York is most probably the busiest stretch of airline traffic in the world and nearly all flights are subsequently delayed, millions of business and pleasure passengers continue to travel through the Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia airports. There has been a 28% increase in passengers in just 4 years
