Dubai airport features in 5 of 10 busiest routes globally

These are the five routes to and from DXB in which passenger traffic crossed 1 million seats in 2022

Waheed Abbas

Published: Mon 9 Jan 2023, 11:23 AM

Last updated: Mon 9 Jan 2023, 4:34 PM

Dubai International Airport (DXB) has been featured in five of the top 10 global busiest routes in terms of seats.

According to OAG, a provider of data on global flight information, airports and airlines, Dubai saw strong passenger traffic growth on Gulf and Indian routes following the recovery in the aviation sector.

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Dubai-Riyadh was the second busiest route last year worldwide, with 40 flights per day and 3.191 million seats. Dubai-London Heathrow and Dubai-Jeddah were the fourth and sixth busiest routes with 2.697 million and 2.425 seats, respectively.

Mumbai-Dubai and Delhi-Dubai were the eighth and 10th busiest routes globally by seat capacity at 1.977 million and 1.898 million, respectively.

The data features scheduled seats between October 2021 and September 2022.

The Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship data showed that Dubai received 23,672,468 passengers in 2022 through different ports. Of these, 21,817,022 arrived through Dubai’s two airports.

The emirate was one of the first cities to open for foreigners after the pandemic, helping the aviation sector to make a faster comeback. The growth was aided by local carriers Emirates and flydubai also, bringing back their capacity at a fast pace after the pandemic and now they serve hundreds of routes across all the continents.

Dubai International was the busiest international airport, too, in December 2022 with total seats of 4.556 million.

OAG said the Middle East plays an important role in aviation globally with four of the top 10 high-density routes are within the region. Cairo-Jeddah was the busiest route 3.234 million seats globally during the 12-month period.

“This shift in focus to the Middle East partly reflects the slower pace of a travel recovery across Asia, where previously many of the key Asian trunk routes dominated the busiest international routes, and the ambitions of Saudi Arabia towards their Vision 2030 goal which will see air traffic grow substantially in the next decade,” OAG said.

Interestingly, Dubai-Los Angeles was the 10th longest route served by airlines with a seating capacity of 30,960 as of September 2022.

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