Passenger traffic at Dubai International airport up 29.6% in July

A total of 6.68 million passengers passed through Dubai International airport in July, up 29.6 per cent from the same month last year, Dubai Airports announced on Wednesday.

Passenger traffic in July last year was low due to a billion dollar runway refurbishment programme that was conducted over 80 days. The airport, reduced to one runway, welcomed over 5.15 million passengers in July 2014.

Overall, during the first seven months of 2015, the airport recorded over 44.98 million passengers, up 12.9 per cent compared to the same period last year, a statement said.

In terms of total passenger numbers, the Gulf Cooperation Council outperformed the rest of the regions, followed by the Indian subcontinent and Western Europe.

The top five countries in terms of passenger numbers were India, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, United States and Pakistan.

In terms of cities, London, Doha, Kuwait, Mumbai and Jeddah emerged as the most popular destinations from Dubai International.

Eastern Europe once again recorded the strongest growth in July – up 77.6 per cent, mainly driven by flydubai’s new services to Slovakia, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Croatia, and Emirates’ service to Hungary.

The GCC region came second, followed by North America and Russia and CIS.

Freight volumes also increased 8 per cent in July to 205,526 tonnes. During the first seven months of 2015, the airport handled 1,438,904 tonnes of freight, up 2.7 per cent year-on-year.

“Over six million passengers per month has become the norm at DXB and we expect that to continue for the remainder of the year,” said chief executive officer of Dubai Airports Paul Griffiths.

“Despite the high volumes we have maintained service levels by implementing detailed operational plans, boosting staff levels, intensifying communication efforts with our business partners and customers.”

Dubai overtook London’s Heathrow as the world’s busiest airport for international travellers last year.

Earlier this year, Griffiths said that the emirate’s two major international airports – including Al Maktoum – expected to receive around 200 million passengers by 2030.

“By 2020, we expect Dubai International to have ultimate capacity of 100 million. By 2020, the traffic projections for the amount of air travel through Dubai will reach 126 million,” he said.