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Dubai Int'l Airport maintains 6.9% growth

Dubai - The airport's year-to-date passenger traffic reached 13.7 million

Dubai International Airport continued to maintain a steady growth of 6.9 per cent, with over 6.4 million recorded passengers in February.
Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, said: "This steady growth in passenger numbers has coincided with the opening of Concourse D in February, which increased DXB's capacity to 90 million passengers a year."
The airport's year-to-date passenger traffic reached 13.7 million, showing a 6.5 per cent increase compared to same period in 2015. A senior aviation analyst said that based on current trends, the airport looks primed for another record breaking year that will see at least 85 million or more passengers handled. Eastern Europe was the fastest expanding market in terms of percentage growth, followed by the Subcontinent, North America and the GCC.
"The drive for growth led by key markets in Europe and America demonstrate the strength of flydubai and Emirates as they execute and push forward with their organic expansion," Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research, told Khaleej Times.
India remained the top destination country in February with a total of 885,298 passengers, followed by Saudi Arabia at 485,570 passengers and the UK at 460,279 passengers. London topped the list of destination cities, followed by Doha and Mumbai. Aircraft movements at the airport totalled 32,975 during the month under review, compared to 31,012 movements recorded in February 2015, up 6.3 per cent.
Freight volumes increased from 191,002 tonnes in February 2015 to 196,730 in February 2016, up 3.0 per cent.
Griffiths said: "This month, we were deemed the third busiest airport in the world by Airports Council International, moving up three places from last year's ranking. Considering that we do not have domestic traffic, this is an important milestone. The continued rise in traffic at DXB is underpinned by our heavy investment in the infrastructure needed to facilitate growth for the 100 airlines that operate at our airport." - abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com