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Abu Dhabi Airport Welcomes 9.7m Passengers in 2009

ABU DHABI - Abu Dhabi International Airport welcomed 9.7 million passengers in 2009, reflecting an increase of 7.3 per cent growth in passenger traffic over the previous year.

The airport is optimistic to achieve over eight per cent growth and welcome 10 million passengers in the current year.

Abu Dhabi International Airport is one of the few aviation hubs in the world to have achieved a healthy growth in the just-concluded year, while it has considerably outperformed the negative global average of negative three per cent, according to a release received here from Abu Dhabi Airports Company, or ADAC, 
on Sunday.

Cargo traffic also demonstrated a robust increase of seven per cent while total flights amounted to 102,118, up by 9.6 per cent on last year.

Abu Dhabi International Airport offered direct scheduled services to 80 destinations in 46 countries and also welcomed eight new airlines in 2009, the release said.

Etihad continued to be the key contributor to the airport’s growth introducing new routes and additional frequencies. During the past year a total of 14 new destinations were added to ADAC’s network.

In terms of Heathrow Airport in London was the most popular city destinations out of Abu Dhabi for 2009, followed by Bangkok, Doha, Bahrain and Cairo.

Pointing out that Abu Dhabi International has proven to be a resilient airport operation, with solid growth in both passenger and cargo traffic numbers, despite adverse global economic climate, Khalifa Al Mazrouei, Chairman of ADAC said “ADAC will continue to work hard to grow its business in cooperation with its key customers and stakeholders’’.

Earlier Ahmed Mohammed Al Haddabi, the vice president—airport operations of ADAC had told Khaleej Times that Abu Dhabi international airport hoped to achieve over eight per cent growth in passenger traffic in 2010, carrying forward the healthy growth figures achieved in the just 
concluded year.

“We should be able to achieve a passenger traffic of 10 million this year,’’ Al Haddabi said.

—ramavarman@khaleejtimes.com