Dubai International (DXB) airport has reported passenger numbers of 66 million for the entire year of 2022.
The exact number of passengers who used the airport last year stood at 66,069,981, representing a 127 per cent year-on-year growth.
Its annual numbers were buoyed by its performance in the last quarter of 2022 which was recorded at 19,729,155 passengers, up 67 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2021.
December was the busiest month of 2022 for DXB with 7.1 million passengers, the first time since January 2020 that DXB’s monthly traffic hit the 7 million mark.
India was the the top destination country for DXB by passenger volume, with a total traffic of 9.8 million passengers, followed by Saudi Arabia with 4.9 million passengers, and the UK at 4.6 million passengers.
Other destination countries of note include Pakistan (3.7 million passengers), the US (3 million), and Russia (1.9 million), which along with Turkey (1.6 million) has recorded more than 100 per cent recovery in passenger volumes compared to 2019 levels.
DXB’s top destination cities during last year were London with 3 million passengers, Riyadh (2 million), Mumbai (1.9 million), followed by Jeddah and New Delhi which both recorded 1.7 million passengers each.
DXB is connected to 229 destinations across 99 countries through over 88 international carriers. Total flight movements at DXB totalled 96,701 during the fourth quarter bringing the annual flight movements to 343,339, a year-on-year growth of 47 per cent. The average number of passengers per flight reached 204, up 33 per cent year-on-year.
“With DXB forecast to welcome 78 million passengers this year, and Dubai hosting major international events including the Dubai Airshow and COP28, it will be another year of new challenges and opportunities and we are ready for them,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.
Cargo continued to register a contraction in volumes with 420,125 tonnes recorded in the fourth quarter, down 31.7 per cent compared to 614,834 tonnes in Q4 of 2021.
The airport handled 1,727,815 tonnes of cargo during 2022, a drop of 25.5 per cent resulting from the moving of all major freight operators back to Dubai World Central (DWC) and the return of pax-freighter aircraft back to passenger operations during the year.
In other statistics shared by the airport, it said that DXB’s baggage handling system processed a total of 62.2 million bags in 2022 with a success rate of 99.8 per cent – a rate of 2.2 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers. In terms of baggage delivery on arrival, 92 per cent of all baggage was delivered within 45 minutes.
The average waiting time at passport control queues was less than 13 minutes for 95.48 per cent of arriving passengers and 96.24 per cent of passengers queued for less than five minutes at departure passport control. The average queue times at security check on departures was less than three minutes for 96.38 per cent of total passengers.
Dubai received 14.36 million international overnight visitors in 2022, an increase of 97 per cent over the 7.28 million tourist arrivals in 2021, according to data published by Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism (DET).
Dubai’s neighbouring emirate of Abu Dhabi meanwhile recently noted that it received 15.9 million passengers across its five airports – Abu Dhabi International, Al Ain International, Al Bateen Executive, Delma Island and Sir Bani Yas Island airports – from January 1-December 31, 2022.
