Dubai: Passenger traffic through Dubai International Airport was up 5.7 per cent from a year earlier to 5.98 million people in October, according to a statement on Tuesday from Dubai Airports, which owns and manages operations of the facility.
In the first 10 months of the year, passenger traffic at Dubai’s main airport rose 6.1 per cent to 58.4 million people. The number of passengers per flight was 192 in October, unchanged from a year earlier. The gain was spurred by an increase in the use of wide-bodied aircraft, according to the operator.
“We are on track to exceed 71 million passengers by year-end which is a remarkable number when you consider we lost the services of one or our runways for almost three months,” Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, said in a statement.
Aircraft movement grew 1.6 per cent in October to 32,798. Movement in the first 10 months of the year dropped 4.8 per cent to 290,779 largely due to the shift of all pure cargo flights and general aviation to Al Maktoum International, Dubai’s other commercial airport, and the reduction of flights during the 80-day runway repair work earlier this year, the operator said.
In terms of growth in overall passenger numbers, the Indian subcontinent was the top market with a gain of 121,669 passengers, followed by Western Europe, Asia and Africa.
Freight volume dropped 6.2 per cent in October to 195,824 tonnes as a result of freighter operations moving to Al Maktoum International. Volume in the first 10 months of the year reached 1.95 million tonnes, down 2.2 per cent.
