Dubai: Dubai’s second airport handled 257,813 passengers in the first quarter as traffic grew on the back of new flydubai and Qatar Airways services, operator Dubai Airports said on Thursday.
This represented a 79.8 per cent increase when compared to the 143,374 passengers that passed through Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC) in the same period a year earlier, according to a statement from the operator.
Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths said he was “pleased with the growth” with the airport attracting repeat customers.
DWC is Dubai’s future mega hub, targeted to one-day handle as much as 250 million passengers a year. The airport is being expanded to handle 25 million passengers a year by the end of 2017, up from 5 million today, when flydubai moves all of its operations over.
Flydubai, which currently splits its operations between Dubai International and DWC, started flying some services from DWC in October 2015. Emirates is expected to move over sometime in the mid-2020s.
Cargo volumes contracted in the first quarter by 6 per cent to 198,295 tonnes. By comparison, the global freighter market shrank by close to 3 per cent in the first quarter, according to airline trade group the International Air Transport Association. On Tuesday, Emirates Group, who has its pure freighter operations based at DWC, reported a 9 per cent drop in Emirates SkyCargo revenue but a 6 per cent increase in tonnes carried. The majority of cargo operations are still handled in the belly space of passenger jets at Dubai International.
The number of aircraft landing and taking off at DWC during the period fell 0.6 per cent to 10,631 movements.
Dubai International, the busiest airport for international passengers, handled 20,948,690 passengers in the first quarter, up 6.8 per cent.
