Dubai International logs 90 million passengers, remains world's busiest airport

Dubai: Dubai International (DXB) has retained its position as the world’s busiest airport in the world for several years in a row, with the number of travellers passing through its terminals hitting nearly 90 million last year.

According to the latest data, a total of 89,149,387 people used the airport in 2018, up by one per cent from the previous year.

“2018 was yet another remarkable year for Dubai Airports,” said CEO Paul Griffiths.

The airport also exceeded the 8 million passenger mark two times last year, particularly in July, when passenger numbers reached 8.2 million, and in August, which logged 8.4 million flyers, making it the busiest month in the history of the airport since it started operations in 1960.

Dubai International has been crowned as the world's busiest hub for international travel for a few years now, outranking London Heathrow in 2014.

India remained the biggest source of traffic, accounting for more than 12.2 million travellers. Most of them came from the Indian cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Cochin.

Saudi Arabia emerged as the second-biggest source market country, having registered over 6.4 million passengers, followed by the United Kingdom with 6.3 million passengers.

Other major sources of travellers were China, which added more than 3.5 million flyers to the list, the United States, which logged more than 3.2 million, and Russia, with 1.5 million.

Chinese travellers increased by six per cent, while Russian passengers went up by 14.5 per cent.

Dubai Airports also recorded more than 408,000 flights, slightly down 0.3 per cent from the previous year. However, passenger numbers increased slightly by 1.3 per cent.

The UAE government allowed Chinese nationals to obtain visa on arrival last year, an initiative that has positively impacted tourist traffic from the Asian market.

Back in 2017, the UAE also granted the same benefit to Russian visitors.