Dubai International Airport announces traffic increase
Dubai :Dubai International Airport has announced a 13.7% increase in traffic.The airport says it has experienced its busiest six months ever, reaching 27.9 million passengers. This time in 2011 they had 24.5 million. The average monthly statistics grew from 4.09 million last year to 4.65 million in 2012.
Air cargo volume also increased by 2.2%, up to 1.09 million tonnes.
According to chief analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research, Saj Ahmad, a lot of responsibility for the increase lies with Dubai’s own thriving airlines: “Dubai International is storming ahead in passenger traffic thanks to large part to its big tenants Emirates and flydubai.”
India, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Pakistan and the US proved to be the top destinations served by Dubai International Airport in 2012.Dubai International is Dubai’s principal airport, and the fourth busiest in the world.
South America remains the leading continent regarding passenger traffic, which has increased since new Emirate routes have been established to Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.
Paul Griffiths, chief executive officer of Dubai Airports said: “Our record first half had some interesting story lines, highlighted by the launch of 12 new routes, the addition of four new airlines and a surge in traffic on routes to Saudi Arabia, USA, Qatar and Australia.”This is the first year that Middle Eastern routes have shown positive growth.
“We expanded our transfer areas to ease connections and we launched new high-tech Information Zones and a new downloadable app called myDXB, both of which provide information on flights and gate numbers as well as way-finding to locate customer-facing services,” he said.
Griffiths remains optimistic for the second half of the year: “We are on track to meet the annual projected traffic of 56.5 million passengers, which will bring us very close to Dubai International’s operational capacity of 60 million passengers per annum.”-DIA
