Passenger traffic to surge at Abu Dhabi airport for New Year travel

Dubai: If you are flying out of Dubai or Abu Dhabi in the next few days, make it a point to reach the airport early.

Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) has announced that holiday traffic will surge compared to 2020 levels as passenger demand, flight numbers and network presence expand. From December 22 until January 2, as many as 32,000 passengers and 102 flights per day are estimated to pass through the airport.

Dubai Airports, meanwhile, is anticipating a rush of more than 1.6 million passengers at Terminal 3 in the second half of December, the operator said earlier.

Following the opening of the final phase of Concourse A at Terminal 3, the world's busiest international airport is 100 per cent operational, said Dubai Airports in a statement. Visitors to Dubai exceeded one million during October, and DXB reached the important milestone of one million passengers per week in November, with origin-destination passengers reaching 94 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

"Reaching the point where 100 per cent of our facilities are now open and serving customers, plus the huge resurgence in passengers arriving into Dubai marks an important milestone for the aviation sector as well as for Dubai and its economic growth," said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.

"The number of visitors to Dubai is likely to exceed pre-pandemic levels during the final few weeks of the year which is an excellent milestone on our journey towards full recovery," said Griffiths.

Riyadh is the top destination from DXB with 160 flights per week, following by Jeddah (105 flights per week) and Bahrain (95 flights per week), according to Flightradar24. From Abu Dhabi, Cairo is the top destination with 42 flights per week, followed by Delhi (31 flights per week) and Kochi (26 flights per week).

Dubai Airports' passenger number estimate for this weekend and the following week could not be immediately known.