If there’s one city that’s ruling the world at present, it has to be Dubai. In 2022 alone, Dubai welcomed 14.36 million visitors, an increase of 97% over the 7.28 million passengers that visited in 2021. And now, Dubai Airports has announced that the passenger traffic at Dubai International (DXB) has reached 95.6% of 2019 levels, with passenger numbers exceeding 21.2 million in the first quarter of the year. Last year, the airport was named the world’s busiest international hub for the ninth time, with 66 million passengers.
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Speaking about the traffic in the first quarter of 2023, as per Dubai Airports data, the traffic totalled 21,256,489 during the first three months of the year, which is 55.8 per cent more in comparison to the first quarter of 2022. It is the first time since 2019 that the airport has recorded a number this high. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the average monthly traffic had reached the 7-million passenger mark.
India Topped The List With Maximum Passenger Traffic
In terms of destinations, at present, DXB is connected to 234 destinations across 99 countries via 89 scheduled international carriers. In terms of passenger traffic, India became the top destination with almost 3 million passengers, followed by Saudi Arabia with 1.6 million passenger traffic, the UK with 1.4 million and Pakistan with 1 million passengers.
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Other countries that added to the traffic are the US, Russia and Germany. As for cities, top passengers came from London, followed by Mumbai, Jeddah and Riyadh.
On this, Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, said, “DXB’s performance in the first quarter has exceeded our expectations and reflects the strong growth in demand that we are continuing to see across our key markets. With important developments in the international travel sector such as the further easing of travel protocols in China, and the upcoming local annual seasonal peaks and festive holidays, our outlook for the second quarter and the remainder of the year remains bullish. Accordingly, we have had to readjust our traffic forecast for 2023 upward to 83.6 million passengers, which will put DXB within striking distance to our 2019 annual traffic.”
Well, we hope that Dubai Airports crosses the 2019 mark soon.
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