9.3% growth at DXB Airport

Passenger traffic at Dubai International (DXB) continued to grow steadily in February rising 8.8 per cent to 6,948,157, according to the monthly traffic report issued by Dubai Airports. The operator said this brings the total year to date passenger traffic at DXB to 14,985,165, a robust growth of 9.3 per cent compared to 13,711,181 recorded during the first two months of 2016.

Eastern Europe was the fastest expanding market in terms of percentage growth (39.1 per cent), followed by Asia (23.8 per cent) and South America (11.6 per cent). India remained the top destination country in February with a total of 937,962 passengers, followed by the UK (516,611 passengers), Saudi Arabia (499,797) and Pakistan (351,477). London topped the list of destination cities with 309,768 passengers, followed by Doha (246,767 passengers), Bangkok (203,432) and Mumbai (194,108).Flight movements at DXB totalled 32,483 during the month under review, a contraction of 2.7 per cent from 33,398 movements recorded in February 2016. Year to date flight movements totaled 69,075, a marginal drop of 0.2 per cent compared to 69,239 during the first two months last year.The average number of passengers per movement during February reached 223 compared to 201 during the corresponding month in 2016, an increase of 11.1 per cent.  DXB recorded 192,704 tonnes of freight in February 2017, down 1.9 per cent from 196,460* tonnes recorded in February 2016. Year to date freight volumes totalled 400,976, a growth of 0.8 per cent compared to 397,942 handled during the corresponding period in 2016.

Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, said, “This robust growth in passenger numbers in February follows the record 8 million passengers in January, and with the seasonal rush of passengers over the spring break over the past four days – during which we welcomed over 1.1 million passengers, we are looking forward to impressive Q1 results.”