Dubai International passenger traffic up by 10.3%

Passenger traffic at Dubai International Airport (DXB) in September dipped slightly from its August figure but remained above 7 million for the sixth time in nine months, operator Dubai Airports recently said.

DXB recorded 7,094,738 passengers in September compared to 7,727,105 the preceding month, the latest monthly traffic report showed.

This represented a 10.3% increase from September 2015, when the airport recorded 6,432,654 passengers.

Over the year to date, DXB recorded 62,945,091 passengers – up 7.2% from the 58,696,877 recorded during the first nine months of 2015.

Eastern Europe again was fastest-growing market for the second month running, with a 23.6% rise in passengers resulting from additional capacity and new services launched by carriers including Emirates and Flydubai, Dubai Airports said.

This was followed by the GCC (16.6%), Asia (16.2%) and the Indian Subcontinent (12.2%). India remained the top destination country with 909,102 passengers, followed by the UK, with 522,046 passengers and Saudi Arabia, with 503,977 passengers.

London was again the top destination city with 323,515 passengers followed by Doha (269,972 passengers) and Kuwait (231,457 passengers).

Baku topped the list of fastest-growing cities, witnessing a 184.2% rise, followed by Boston (65.3%), Calicut (63.5%) and Taipei (55%).

The average number of passengers per flight during the month was 213, according to the report.

It also recorded a marginal (1.9%) rise in total flight movements at DXB to 34,793 compared to 34,146 last September.

Year to date, the number of flights totalled 312,169 – a minor increase of 3.2% compared to 302,399 recorded in September 2015.

Freight volumes totalled 205,142 tonnes, down 1% from 207,315 recorded last September. Year to date cargo reached 1,891,419 tonnes, up 2% compared to 1,853,130 tonnes recorded during the first eight months last year.