Dubai Airports today released its year-end traffic report, which confirm that Dubai International has taken over the position as the number one airport for international passenger numbers from Heathrow.<\/p>\n
During 2014, the gateway welcomed 70,475,636, up 6.1% from the 66,431,533 recorded in 2013.<\/p>\n
The airport says this followed robust passenger traffic growth of 7.5% in December with 6,498,573 travellers passing through the facility compared to 6,047,126 recorded in the corresponding month last year.<\/p>\n
HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Airports, explains: \u201cThis historic milestone is the culmination of over five decades of double-digit average growth that were inspired by the vision of the late Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a vision that has been carried forward strongly by our leader HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and PM of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.<\/p>\n
“The shared goal is to make Dubai a global centre of aviation and we are nearing that goal thanks to an open skies policy, a friendly business environment, Dubai’s growing attractiveness as a centre for trade, commerce and tourism, growing network connectivity due to the rapid expansion of Emirates and flydubai and timely investment in aviation infrastructure.”<\/p>\n
Aircraft movements in December rose 4% to 34,136, up marginally from the 32,832 recorded during December 2013.<\/p>\n
Full-year aircraft movements totalled 357,339 compared to 369,953 versus 2013, a contraction of 3.4%, primarily due to the temporary reduction of flights experienced during the 80-day runway refurbishment project during the summer, and the shift of freighter operators and general aviation to Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC) earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Spurred by an ongoing increase in the number of wide-bodied aircraft servicing the airport, the numbers of passengers per flight increased 5.1% to 208.3 passengers for the full year.<\/p>\n
In 2014, the top market for growth in passenger volumes was Western Europe (+1,192,831 passengers) closely followed by the Indian Subcontinent (+936,449 passengers), Asia (+716,180) and North America (+432,597).<\/p>\n
In terms of percentage growth in 2014 Eastern Europe (+21%) was the strongest market followed by North America (18.6%), Asia (12.6%), Australasia (9.2%) and Western Europe (8.8%).<\/p>\n
Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, says: \u201cMuch like 2014, 2015 promises to be another eventful year featuring more record passenger numbers and facility upgrades including the opening of Concourse D which will boost Dubai International’s capacity to 90 million.<\/p>\n
“Today we are also releasing our projections for 2015 traffic at Dubai International which forecast 79 million passengers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have more flights connecting more people to more destinations. And we will be fully focussed on rolling out technology, new F&B concepts and service initiatives that further enhance the passenger experience.”<\/p>\n