Dubai airport tops pre-pandemic passenger site visitors in first half

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Dubai’s important airport reported a 49 per cent surge in passenger site visitors within the first half of the yr to 41.6 million, surpassing pre-pandemic ranges, operator Dubai Airports mentioned on Tuesday.

The second quarter fuelled the restoration to only over 100 per cent of site visitors numbers within the first half of 2019, rising almost 43 per cent from the second quarter of 2022 to twenty.3 million passengers, the operator mentioned.

Dubai, the tourism and commerce hub of the Middle East, was fast to reopen after the pandemic. That, together with an inflow of enterprise professionals in addition to relaxed social and visa guidelines, helped gasoline an financial restoration that has additionally seen property costs and rents balloon.

Dubai Airports adjusted its forecast for 2023 to 85 million passengers from 83.6 million, “just 1.6 per cent shy of DXB’s (Dubai International) annual traffic in 2019,” Chief Executive Paul Griffiths mentioned in an announcement.

“We started the second half with strong demand in July, and with the ongoing seasonal peak coinciding with the reopening of schools in August, we’re preparing for an exceptionally busy rest of the year.”

DXB’s annual passenger site visitors final yr was 66.1 million, Dubai Airports mentioned in February.

The airport flew 201,800 flights within the first half, up 30.2 per cent year-on-year. May was the second quarter’s busiest month, with 6.9 million passengers.

India was DXB’s high vacation spot nation by way of site visitors with 6 million passengers within the first half, adopted by Saudi Arabia with 3.1 million, the UK with 2.8 million and Pakistan with 2 million. The US, Russia and Germany had 1.8 million, 1.3 million and 1.2 million passengers, respectively.