UAE. Dubai International Airport (DXB) has recorded its busiest quarter since 2020, handling 13.6m passengers in Q1 this year. This makes it the second consecutive quarter when passenger traffic at DXB has passed the 10 million mark.
Bolstered by 5.5 million in passenger traffic in March, DXB’s passenger numbers for the first quarter were up +15.7% compared to the 11.8m passengers recorded for the final quarter of 2021. By comparison, DXB recorded 5.7 million passengers for the whole of the first quarter of 2021.
As reported, DXB maintained its position as the world’s busiest airport in 2021, according to recently published data from Airports Council International.
The UAE airport served 29.1 million passengers, up by +12.7% year-on-year but down by about two-thirds on 2019. DXB is currently connected to 193 destinations across 92 countries via 73 scheduled international carriers.
Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said: “DXB’s performance over the past successive quarters is nothing short of impressive and is a direct outcome of Dubai’s clear strategy and efforts to restore international air connectivity and mobility and lead the global aviation industry out of an unprecedented crisis.
“While the recovery was initially led by point-to-point traffic, which continues to exceed pre-pandemic levels, the opening of international travel across many key markets has enabled transfer traffic to rebound to 60% of 2019 levels.”
The outlook for the year remains strong with annual traffic now projected to reach 58.3m, exceeding initial forecasts by a significant margin, he added.
Other key figures for Q1 2022
Flights: Flight movements during the first quarter totalled 81,966, an increase of +5.8% compared to the last quarter of 2021, during which 77,475 flights were recorded at DXB.
Top destinations: India retained its position as DXB’s top destination country with 1.6 million passengers, followed by Saudi Arabia (1.1 million), Pakistan (997,000) and the UK (934,000). The top three cities in terms of passenger numbers were London (617,000), Riyadh (517,000), Jeddah (337,000) and Istanbul (324,000).
