Monthly traffic boosted by Dubai Shopping Festival

Dubai International has begun the new year with another record monthly traffic by welcoming more than 6.8 million passengers in January. According to the traffic report issued by operator Dubai Airports today, passenger traffic rose 7.7 per cent to 6,895,668 in January 2015, up from 6,400,706 in the same month in 2014.
This follows Dubai International's performance in 2014 during which the airport welcomed 70.4 million passengers to claim the title of the world's number one airport for international passenger traffic. "Considering that Dubai International is projected to welcome over 79 million passengers in 2015, there is no better way to begin a year than with a record month," said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.
Regionally, Eastern Europe remained the fastest-expanding market in terms of percentage growth* (+71.9 per cent), followed by North America (+16.9 per cent), the Indian subcontinent (+12.2 per cent) and Asia (10.5 per cent). Russia & CIS recorded fewer visitors with traffic dropping -22.7 per cent due to the political and economic instability in the region, while traffic on Australasian routes also registered a marginal dip of -1.6 per cent. Routes to the Indian subcontinent (+171,552 passengers), AGCC (+115,317 passengers), and Western Europe (+105,409) topped in terms of growth in passenger numbers.
Most markets were boosted in January by holiday traffic as well as visitors to the annual Dubai Shopping Festival.
Aircraft movements totalled 34,643 in January 2015, up 6.2 per cent compared to the 32,625 movements recorded in January 2014.
Freight volumes at Dubai International continued the downward trend in January, contracting 5.5 per cent to 186,230 tonnes, from 197,021 recorded in January 2014. The contraction is the result of a total of shift of cargo operations to Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central since May 2014.
"The opening of Concourse D later this year will increase our annual capacity to 90 million passengers and make sure we can continue to accommodate the increasing number of travellers who choose to fly through DXB. It is also a strong endorsement for our US$7.8bn SP2020 expansion plan which will allow us to remain one step ahead of our expected growth by increasing our capacity both on the ground as well as in the air," Griffiths said.
Source: WAM