Dubai International Airport, the busiest airport in the world for international travel, reported serving 41.6 million passengers on Tuesday, exceeding numbers for the same period in 2019 when visitors resumed flying following the coronavirus pandemic’s lockdowns.
The airport in Dubai, which is the long-haul airline Emirates’ home base, has long acted as a gauge for the global aviation business. The International Air Transport Association’s statistics, according to which global traffic is at 94% of pre-COVID levels, are reflected in the new numbers at the DXB airport.
“Dubai International Airport has once again confirmed that it is the world’s busiest international airport for the ninth year running with a very, very strong first half,” Paul Griffiths, the CEO of Dubai Airports.
The most crucial element of that is that we have attained all of our pre-pandemic levels, which were the same levels seen in the first half of 2019.
Due to the airlines’ newly operational additional planes and routes, the 41.6 million passengers represent an increase of about 50% above the 27.9 million passengers seen at this time last year.
India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan are the airport’s usual travel destinations, and they have mostly led passenger traffic this year. Russia has also been a significant market because Dubai is one of the few locations that still welcomes Russians despite Moscow’s conflict with Ukraine.
One of the first places to reopen to tourists following the outbreak was Dubai. The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, and the opulent, sail-shaped Burj Al-Arab hotel served to bolster the city-state’s tourism business by luring tourists and transit customers away from airport lounges.With 8.55 million foreign tourists, Dubai topped its pre-pandemic, half-year tourism numbers this year. During that time, Dubai hotels experienced an average occupancy rate of 78%, placing it among the top travel destinations in the globe.
Pre-pandemic, we observed 60% transit and 40% point to point, but that has since been reversed, according to Griffiths. “As of right now, 40% of that traffic is transit and 60% is point-to-point traffic. That makes for a pretty noteworthy statistic that supports the appeal of Dubai as very strong destination for tourist.
Globally, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport continues to be the busiest airport for passengers.
In 2022, Emirates experienced its most prosperous year ever, earning $2.9 billion thanks to a resurgence in demand for its long-haul Boeing 777s and double-decker Airbus A380s. At DXB, the average amount of passengers per flight has increased to 214 since the A380’s return, according to Griffiths.According to Griffiths, the airport has increased its estimated passenger numbers for 2023 to 85 million, narrowly falling short of the 86.3 million passengers it saw in yearly traffic in 2019. Before the pandemic, 2018, when 89.1 million people used the airport, it was the busiest year ever. In 2022, 66 million people traveled via DXB.
However, the quick commerce also brings to light a significant problem that Dubai International Airport had forgotten about during the pandemic—it is surrounded. The airport is located in the northern part of Dubai, bordered to the east and west by two major thoroughfares and huge residential areas to the north and south. This makes it impossible to increase the size of the two-runway airfield.
“We are landlocked on all four sides,” Griffiths said of DXB, “because I remember back to the ’60s when this airport was a very modest single runway field, no one really recognized at that time the massive expansion” coming.” “I think it’s a credit to the work we’ve done that we were able to generate real estate within that landlocked site, which has grown to be the busiest international airport worldwide.
He said that the airport had plans to invest up to $2.7 billion on its three terminals’ expansion and modernization as well as an increase in the number of distant aircraft parking spots on the apron. According to him, these advancements “will probably keep us in good shape for the next 12 to 13 years.”
Massive works at Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, the city-state’s secondary airport located some 28 miles away in its far southern regions, would most likely be delayed as a result. The second airport, which opened in 2010, primarily handles freight and private aircraft flights, despite being used by commercial carriers when Qatar hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2022.
Currently, 104 countries and 257 destinations are served by Dubai International Airport.