Dubai International saw through over 78 million passengers in 2015, more than enough for the airport to retain its title of world’s busiest airport for international passengers, operator Dubai Airports said Monday.
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Dubai Airports said today that this compared with the 70,473,893 passengers handled in 2014, with the aforementioned new 2015 record topped off with December 2015 traffic numbering 7,053,243 – a rise of 8.5% compared with 6,498,573 in December 2014.
Annual traffic rose to 78 million passengers from 70.5 million in 2014.
The Mideast gateway surpassed London Heathrow as the busiest handler of global travelers in 2014.
A traditionally strong market, India retained its position as Dubai’s single largest destination country in 2015 with 10,391,376 passengers, a year on year growth of 17 per cent compared to 8,908,362 in 2014.
According to data from the period released this Monday (1) by Dubai Airports, company that manages the terminal, the hike was driven by the growth of activities of the companies operating in the terminal, especially the two local companies: Emirates Airline and flydubai, which operates budget flights. Additionally, around 12 new destinations were added by the airport’s designated carrier Emirates and flydubai, its sister low cost airline.
Expected to open in the first quarter of this year, Concourse D will be spread across 150,000 square metres and will have the capacity to handle 18 million passengers per year. Meanwhile, travel to and from the U.S. went up by 25 per cent from 2014 to 2015.
During 2015, the airport welcomed new airlines, including Air Canada from Toronto, Eurowings from Cologne and China Southern from Wuhan. The UK was placed second with 5,682,307 passengers (+6 per cent) followed closely by Saudi Arabia at 5,466,358 (+12 per cent). “With this growth, there will be a more pressing need to develop Al Maktoum International Airport even faster”.
The review comes four months after Griffiths said Dubai International, owned by the Dubai government, would not follow Bahrain, who at the time was reportedly looking at increasing airport charges because of the falling oil price.
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Now around 100 airlines connect Dubai International to more than 240 destinations around the world.
