Dubai International airport set to surpass annual forecast of 65.4m passengers

Dubai International, the world's second busiest international hub, is set to surpass the traffic forecast for the year, as the airport recorded another month of high growth in November, according to the monthly traffic report issued by Dubai Airports. With passenger traffic in November reaching 5,337,544, up 9.5 per cent compared to the corresponding period in 2012, the airport has registered 12 consecutive months with traffic exceeding 5 million passengers. For the year to date (end of November), Dubai International has seen 60,384,407 passengers compared with 52,363,589 recorded during the same period last year. In November, western Europe recorded the largest increase in total passenger numbers (+97,637 passengers), followed by the Indian subcontinent (+56,732), the AGCC (+56,711), Australasia (+51,151), and Africa (+46,731). The strongest markets in terms of percentage growth were eastern Europe (+56.5 per cent) driven by flydubai's services to 15 destinations in 10 countries across Europe, followed by Australasia (+33.4 per cent) thanks to the launch of Qantas' services to Dubai earlier this year, and Russia and the CIS (18.8 per cent ) spurred by an increase in demand on routes to the region. Aircraft movements in November increased by 6 per cent to 31,525. The year to date movements were up by 7.6 per cent. Dubai International handled 223,195 tonnes of cargo in November, an increase of 11.6 per cent compared to the same month in 2012. The year to date freight volumes reached 2,217,429 tonnes compared to 2,077,676 tonnes handled during the corresponding period last year. Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, said, "The growth in passenger traffic has been nothing short of phenomenal this year, with a monthly average of 5.4 million customers and we are set to exceed our target of 65.4 million for the year. Dubai International's total capacity increased to 75 million passengers per year when Concourse A was opened in January and this will be followed by the opening of Concourse D in early 2015. We continue to focus on improving our facilities and customer service as our infrastructure development programme keeps pace with our healthy traffic growth." WAM/ES/CM