Passenger traffic soars at DXB as Indian carriers expand

Passenger traffic at Dubai International surged 9.4 percent in November, primarily driven by the growth of Indian airlines serving the destination.

The airport, which is the busiest in the world for international passenger traffic, welcomed more than 6.58 million passengers compared to 6.01 million in November 2015 and India was the top destination country with 958,763 passengers.

This was due to the expansion of capacity and services by Indian operators such as Spice Jet, Jet Airways, Air India and other carriers during the year.

After India, Saudi Arabia was the top source destination with 469,483 passengers followed by the UK (465,385), and Pakistan (308,071).

The airport’s top performing regions in terms of percentage growth were Eastern Europe (26.5 percent) and Asia (17.3 percent) followed closely by the GCC (17 percent), while London (286,986), Doha (235,910), Mumbai (202,041) and Riyadh (151,791) were the top destination cities with the highest passenger growth during the month.

Year to date traffic in November at DXB totalled 75.95 million passengers, up 7 percent compared to 70.96 million passengers recorded during the first 11 months of the year in 2015, while YTD aircraft movements totalled 382,155 compared to 371,103 in 2015, a growth of 2.9 percent.

Describing DXB’s performance during the year as very satisfying, Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports said: “We are very pleased with the overall growth at DXB in general and passenger traffic in particular, with average monthly traffic nearing 7 million passengers this year. Considering the seasonal rush of travellers we experienced at DXB during the holiday season in December, we are all set to achieve impressive annual growth yet again.”