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Passengers at Dubai International Airport. Image Credit: File photo

Dubai: People passing through Dubai International (DXB) are spending less time at various counters, even as passenger volumes continue to increase.

According to the latest data released on Sunday, the average wait times spent by travellers at DXB was reduced by 45 per cent in November, thanks to the state-of-the-art operations centre at the aviation hub, which leverages real-time information to improve service efficiency.

Smart gates have also helped speed up movement of customers going through immigration checks, the latest press release from Dubai Airports said.

For the first 11 months of the year, 81.4 million passengers have used the world's busiest airport, up 1.3 percent. The number of people using the airport in November, however, dipped slightly by 0.8 percent to 6.9 million.

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Also during the same period, more than 300,000 flights took off or landed at DXB, slightly down 0.3%, but the number of customers per flight went up 0.5 per cent.

The number of bags passing through the airport’s 175-kilometre-long baggage system in October alone went up 2.3 per cent to 5.8 million.

Top destinations

India remained DXB’s top destination country by customer numbers, with total traffic reaching 1,032,662 during in November.

Saudi Arabia climbed one rank to reach the second spot with 509,446 customers, followed by The United Kingdom (UK) with 466,459 customers. Other top markets include the US (235,523 customers) and China (189,466).

The top three cities were London (275,141 customers), Mumbai (221,812) and New Delhi (183,680).

With a growth of 6.9 per cent, North America held its position as the fastest growing region, followed closely by Africa at 6.8 per cent and Eastern Europe growing 4.6 per cent.

Flights

Flight movements totalled 33,031 (-1.2 per cent) in November while the average number of customers per flight was slightly up at 216 (0.5 per cent).

A total of 373,229 flights have taken-off or landed at DXB (-0.3 per cent) so far this year, bringing the total number of daily flight movements at DXB to 1,120.

Cargo

In November 237,059 tonnes of airfreight was handled at DXB, up 0.6 per cent, bringing the total cargo tonnage for the year to 2,407,050 (-0.8 per cent).