Tag Archives: passenger traffic

According to IATA’s latest report passenger traffic recovery has been strong for Middle East carriers with 31.4% YoY in the second quarter of 2023. The region’s airlines saw their RPKs reach within 0.9% of their Q2 2019 levels. The Middle East outperformed the global recovery in RPKs, which reached 93.7% (within 6.3%) of pre-covid levels for the quarter. Since most of the passenger traffic for the Middle East is international, total RPKs followed similar growth trends and recovery rates as international RPKs.  Ticket sales for the region have outperformed the global average and continue to trend upward, indicating sustained passenger demand. Local holiday shifts in the region caused some fluctuations but the overall trend remains positive. The Middle East also saw a solid recovery in origin-destination (O-D) passenger traffic in Q2 2023 compared to pre-covid periods. Passenger traffic growth generally varied among the countries in the region, with the strongest performances seen in the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan. The UAE led with an impressive 17.2% growth in O-D passenger traffic, compared to the same period in 2019. Other countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were within 2% and 5.6% of full recovery. While Iran’s O-D passenger traffic remained 34.4% below pre-covid levels (Chart 86), other countries also exhibited subdued growth in the second quarter compared to the previous period. This was primarily due to the timing of Ramadan in 2023 compared to 2019.

Global Investment in Aviation Summit 2019 is all set to take place from January 27-29, 2018 at the Intercontinental Dubai Festival City with brainstorming on challenges and investment in aviation being the core objectives. The required modernisation of aviation infrastructure expansion, development, and modernisation to cater to anticipated increase in passenger and freight air traffic demand will reach USD 1.8 trillion by 2030. GIAS 2019 is an initiative of the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), which was established to create a leading, safe, secure and sustainable civil aviation system in the country. According to a report published by the International Air Transport Authority (IATA), global aviation will have to cater to over 14 trillion passenger traffic and 466 billion tonnes of freight traffic by 2034. This projection will show an increase of 14.5 per cent RPK and 4.2 per cent FTK, per annum respectively. The projected growth in global aviation industry will generate at least 99 million jobs and will contribute USD 5.9 trillion in GDP, a 122 per cent increase from 2014, according to the same IATA report. The UAE is investing substantially in upgrading the aviation infrastructure. HE Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi, Director General, UAE General Civil Aviation Authority, said, “Aviation has been an important part of the UAE’s economic growth. One of the nation’s vigorous strength is its rapidly-expanding infrastructure, with spending of USD23.16 billion, including USD8 billion for expansion of Al Maktoum International Airport, USD7.6 billion for Phase IV development of Dubai International Airport, and USD 6.8 billion for expansion of Abu Dhabi International Airport. Collectively, the UAE increases its fleet per month by approximately 4-5 per cent and the total number of aircraft will …

Passenger traffic at Sharjah International Airport grew by 4 per cent during the third quarter of 2017, compared with the same period of 2016, handling 2.996 million passengers. Summer travel drove Q3 growth with the airport handling 1 million passengers during July and 1.1 million passengers during August. Performance during the three months also beat that of Q1 and Q2 this year, which registered 2 percent and 3 per cent growth respectively. July and August were the first months of this year that exceeded one million passengers, with growth being supported by airline promotions, additional summer flights and the Sharjah summer tourism promotion campaign. Last week, Sharjah International Airport received its first Rossiya Airlines flight from Saint Petersburg and Ekaterinburg in Russia. The airline will operate two Boeing 737-800 flights weekly from October 2017 until March 2018. Sharjah Airport Authority recently appointed US engineering consultancy Parsons Overseas Limited to oversee its US$400 million (AED 1.46b) expansion.