DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for worldwide journey, introduced Tuesday it served 41.6 million passengers within the first half of this yr – exceeding figures for a similar interval in 2019 as vacationers return to the air after the lockdowns of the coronavirus pandemic.
The airport, residence to the long-haul service Emirates in skyscraper-studded Dubai, lengthy has served as a barometer for the aviation business worldwide. The new figures on the airport generally known as DXB replicate figures supplied by the International Air Transport Association that visitors worldwide is at 94% of pre-COVID ranges.
“Dubai International Airport has once again recorded for the ninth year running that it is the world’s busiest international airport with a very, very strong first half,” Paul Griffiths, the CEO of Dubai Airports, instructed The Associated Press. “The most important part of that is that we’ve reached 100% of our pre-pandemic numbers, the same numbers as recorded in the first half of 2019.”
The 41.6 million passengers is up some 50% from the 27.9 million recorded the identical time final yr, as airways now have extra planes and routes operating once more.
Passenger visitors this yr largely has been pushed by the airport’s commonplace journey locations — India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Pakistan. Russia has additionally been a significant market as Dubai stays one of many few locations nonetheless open to Russians amid Moscow’s warfare on Ukraine.
Dubai was among the many first cities to reopen to vacationers within the pandemic. That helped enhance the city-state’s tourism business, as sights just like the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest constructing, and the sail-shaped Burj Al-Arab luxurious resort draw each guests and transit passengers out of airport lounges.
Dubai surpassed its pre-pandemic, half-year vacationer figures this yr with 8.55 million worldwide guests. Dubai resorts noticed a median occupancy of 78% throughout that interval – rating amongst a number of the world’s prime locations.
“What happened pre-pandemic is we saw 60% transit and 40% point to point, but that’s actually reversed,” Griffiths mentioned. “What we’re now seeing is 60% of that traffic number is point to point and 40% is transit. So that’s a very notable statistic and underpins the appeal of Dubai as a very, very strong tourist destination.”
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport stays the planet’s busiest passenger airport general.
Emirates additionally noticed its most worthwhile yr ever in 2022, incomes $2.9 billion as passengers returned to its long-haul Boeing 777s and its double-decker Airbus A380s. The return of the A380 has seen the typical variety of passengers per flight bounce at DXB to 214, Griffiths mentioned.
Griffiths mentioned given the demand, the airport has bumped its projected passenger numbers for 2023 to 85 million, simply shy of 2019’s annual visitors of 86.3 million passengers. The airport noticed 89.1 million passengers in 2018 – its busiest-ever yr earlier than the pandemic. DXB had 66 million passengers move by way of it in 2022.
For Dubai International Airport, nevertheless, the swift enterprise additionally revives a significant problem forgotten throughout the pandemic – it’s boxed in. The airport sits within the northern reaches of Dubai, bracketed by two main highways to the east and west and huge neighborhoods to its north and south. That prohibits increasing the scale of the two-runway airfield.
“We are landlocked on all four sides because I think back in the ’60s when this airport was a very small single runway field, no one really saw at that time the huge development” coming, Griffiths mentioned of DXB. “I think it’s testament to the developments we have undertaken that within that landlocked site, we’ve been able to produce real estate, which has become the world’s busiest international airport.”
He mentioned the airport has a plan to spend as a lot as $2.7 billion to develop and improve its three terminals and enhance the variety of distant plane parking areas on the airport’s apron. Those enhancements “will probably see us right for about the next 12 to 13 years,” he mentioned.
That doubtless will prolong the horizon additional for main work at Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, the city-state’s second airfield some 45 kilometers (28 miles) away in its far southern reaches. While utilized by industrial airways when Qatar hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the second airport that opened in 2010 largely sees cargo and personal plane flights.
Dubai International Airport now serves 257 locations throughout 104 nations.
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