Dubai International Airport continued to witness steady growth and high volumes in April as passenger numbers rose 5.7 per cent to 6.5 million, up from 6.15 million in the same period last year.

The increase in the number of passengers is partly due to growth in the Eastern Europe region as Dubai-based flydubai launched new services to Slovakia, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Croatia. The region also benefited from Emirates service to Hungary and Transavia airline to Bulgaria.

Other regions that registered high growth rates include North America (17.9 per cent) – where Emirates has increased capacity on many destinations and launched a new route to Chicago – and the Indian subcontinent (12.6 per cent).

Political and economic instability continued to affect traffic on Russian and the CIS routes (down 27.6 per cent).

In terms of passenger numbers the Indian subcontinent outperformed the rest of the regions (up 167,652 passengers), followed by the GCC (up 92,069 passengers), and Western Europe (65,175).

Moreover, the first four months of the year recorded a 6.5 per cent increase in passenger numbers, welcoming 26.1 million people compared to 24.5 million during the same period last year.

“Traffic grew steadily in the first four months of the year and the trend looks set to continue throughout the first half, especially with the summer travel peak just round the corner,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.

“We are again expecting record traffic levels at Dubai International this summer and again we will be deploying additional resources from the kerb to the boarding gates to ease the flow of passengers through our facility,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service