Dubai International passenger traffic up 10% in September

September traffic at Dubai International Airport has surged more than 10 per cent with 7 million passengers per month fast becoming the norm, according to Dubai Airports.

The airport operator said passenger traffic during the month reached 7,094,738 compared to 6,432,654 recorded in the corresponding month last year, an increase of 10.3 per cent.

Year to date the world’s busiest airport for international passenger traffic has welcomed 62,945,091, up 7.2 per cent from the 58,696,877 recorded during the first nine months of 2015.

“Seven million passengers per month is clearly the new normal at DXB. While this is welcome news, we are even more pleased with our ability to enhance the passenger experience by using technology and process improvements to increase the flow rate through the airport. Our DXB Plus programme is designed to improve that even further as we work towards not only operating the world’s busiest airports but also the world’s best,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports

During September, Eastern Europe fast the fastest growing market, up 23.6 per cent thanks to new services from carriers including Emirates and flydubai.

Capacity from the GCC also increased 16.6 per cent, Asia 16.2 per cent and the Indian subcontinent 12.2 per cent.

India was the top destination country at 909,102 passengers, followed by the UK with 522,046 and Saudi Arabia with 503,977.

The top destination cities were London (323,515), Doha (269,972) and Kuwait (231,457), with Baku (184.2 per cent, Boston (65.3 per cent), Calicut (63.5 per cent) and Taipei (55 per cent) the fastest growing,

The average number of passenger numbers per flight was 213.

September saw 34,793 flights operate from DXB compared to 34,146 during the month last year, an increase of 1.9 per cent.

Year to date, flights are up 3.2 per cent from 302,399 to 312,169.

Despite the increase in passenger numbers, freight volumes were down 1 per cent for the month from 207,315 tonnes to 205,142 tonnes.

Year to date cargo volumes were up 2 per cent from 1,853,130 tonnes to 1,891,419