Dubai retains title of World’s busiest international airport
Dubai International (DXB) continues to be the world’s busiest airport by international passenger numbers for the eighth consecutive year after clocking 29.1 million in annual traffic in 2021, , exceeding forecasts for the year by more than half a million passengers.
→ Miami was the US airport with highest cargo volume in 2021.
Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, described an eventful year which, despite the uncertainties of the global pandemic, contained many milestones that demonstrate several bold steps taken by Dubai and its aviation sector to lead the recovery of global air travel, including the successful hosting of the Dubai Airshow 2021, the world’s first major airshow since the start of the pandemic, the return of DXB to 100% operational capacity with the reopening of Terminal 1-Concourse D and Concourse A, and the opening of the world’s largest in-house airport laboratory for fast-track processing Covid-19 PCR test samples for Dubai’s visitors.
The airport also welcomed a record number of new airlines connecting Dubai to new destinations.
→ London’s Gatwick airport will reopen south terminal in March.
Current forecasts indicate that traffic through DXB could reach 55.1m by the end of 2022, but Griffiths acknowledges that if current trends continue, that figure could be exceeded by a significant margin.
Key figures
DXB welcomed 29,110,609 passengers for the full year of 2021, a year-on year-growth of 12.7%. The numbers were propelled by a robust growth in the final three months of the year during which DXB recorded 11,794,046 passengers, 77% more than in the previous quarter. It was the busiest quarter since Q1 2020, and the first time since the start of the pandemic that DXB’s quarterly traffic surpassed the 10 million mark. December was the busiest month of the year with 4.5 million passengers.
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Plataforma Informativa de Aviación Comercial líder en América Latina.