Dubai Airport’s Q1 performance leads global travel industry recovery
Dubai International Airport (DXB), the world’s busiest airport for international traffic, welcomed 21.2 million passengers in the first quarter of 2023, making it the busiest quarterly period since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Traffic was up 55.8% year on year (YoY) and reached 95.6% of 2019 levels during the three-months to March, putting DXB firmly on track to reaching its target of 83.6 million passengers in 2023. In 2019, more than 86 million passengers passed through the airport.
This figure was down to 66 million last year on account of the global decline in international air travel in the wake of the pandemic. The result still enabled DXB to retain its position as the world’s busiest international hub for the ninth year running.
March marked the busiest month in the first quarter of this year with 7.3 million passengers. It was just 500,000 down on the busiest month ever recorded by the airport in January 2020.
DXB is currently connected to 234 destinations across 99 countries via 89 scheduled international carriers.
India maintained its position as DXB’s top destination country with passenger traffic reaching 3m, followed by Saudi Arabia (1.6m), the UK (1.4m) and Pakistan (1m).
Other countries of note include the United States (840,000 passengers), Russia (729,000) and Germany (628,000), while the list of top cities by passenger numbers was led by London (890,000 passengers) Mumbai (645,000), and Jeddah (641,000), followed closely by Riyadh (604,000).
Total flight movements during the first quarter reached 100,840, up 23% YoY and 1.6% higher than Q1, 2019, when DXB recorded a total of 99,197 movements. With load factors exceeding 2019 levels throughout the first quarter and reaching 80% in March 2023, the passenger per aircraft movement grew 19.5% to reach 220.
“DXB’s performance in the first quarter has exceeded our expectations and reflects the strong growth in demand that we are continuing to see across our key markets,” commented Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.
“With important developments in the international travel sector such as the further easing of travel protocols in China, and the upcoming local annual seasonal peaks and festive holidays, our outlook for the second quarter and the remainder of the year remains bullish. Accordingly, we have had to readjust our traffic forecast for 2023 upward to 83.6 million passengers, which will put DXB within striking distance of our 2019 annual traffic.”