UAE. Passenger traffic at Dubai International climbed by +7.4% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017, to 22,496,596. Dubai International is the world’s number one airport for international passenger numbers.
March traffic posted a +3.8% increase to 7,511,431. The more modest growth rate was due to the timing of the Easter holiday, which fell during March in 2016 and during April in 2017.
The average number of passengers per flight in the first three months of the year was 224, compared to 209 during the corresponding period in 2016, an increase of +6.8%.
During the first three months of the year, Eastern Europe was the fastest expanding market in terms of percentage growth (+33.3%). The appreciation of the Rouble against the US Dollar over the past year has increased spending power in Dubai and spiked demand in the Russian market, noted Dubai Airports, and also comes as a welcome boost to travel retailer Dubai Duty Free.
Asia was the next fastest growing market (+22.6%) which benefited from additional capacity provided by Emirates and flydubai in markets such as Thailand, China and the Philippines. South America also delivered robust growth at +22.2%..
Conversely, the impact of travel bans and electronic device restrictions is starting to be felt on North American traffic figures, which were down -4.3% during March versus the same period last year. Year to date traffic to and from North America is up by +2.5%.
India remained the top destination country during the first three months of the year with a total of 3,031,866 passengers, followed by the UK (1,618,334), Saudi Arabia (1,572,963) and Pakistan (1,166,642). London topped the list of destination cities during the period with 974,950 passengers, followed by Doha (797,729 passengers), Bangkok (633,496) and Mumbai (618,638).
Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said: “While there are fluctuations in growth market-by-market the overall trend is quite positive as evidenced by the +7.4% increase in passenger numbers during the first quarter. That result keeps us well on track to meet our 2017 forecast of 89 million passengers.”
