Dubai Airports said on Tuesday that traffic at Dubai International (DXB) for the first quarter of this year had reached 95.6 per cent of the corresponding period in 2019, with passenger numbers exceeding 21.2 million.
DXB’s strong performance in the first quarter has meant that officials have now revised the forecast for the airport’s annual passenger traffic. “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,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.
DXB’s passenger traffic totalled 21,256,489 during the first three months of the year, up 55.8 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2022, and marking the first time since the fourth quarter of 2019 when average monthly passenger traffic reached the 7 million figure. In Q1 2023, March was the busiest month with 7.3 million passengers, which is also the highest monthly traffic since January 2020 when DXB recorded 7.8 million passengers.
In the first quarter, India remained DXB’s top destination country with passenger traffic reaching 3 million, followed by Saudi Arabia (1.6 million), the UK (1.4 million) and Pakistan (1 million). Other countries of note include the US (840,000), Russia (729,000) and Germany (628,000), while the list of top cities by passenger numbers was led by London (890,000) Mumbai (645,000), and Jeddah (641,000), followed closely by Riyadh (604,000).
Total flight movements during Q1 reached 100,840, a year-on-year increase of 23 per cent and 1.6 per cent higher than the corresponding quarter in 2019 when DXB recorded a total of 99,197 movements. With load factors exceeding 2019 levels throughout the first quarter and reaching 80 per cent in March 2023, the passenger per aircraft movement grew 19.5 per cent to reach 220.
DXB is currently connected to 234 destinations across 99 countries via 89 scheduled international carriers.
DXB retained its position as the world’s busiest international airport for the ninth consecutive year for 2022, according to the Airports Council International (ACI) World. The number of passengers who used the DXB airport in 2022 stood at 66,069,981, representing a 127 per cent year-on-year growth.
