Dubai Airports reports that its July passenger numbers increased by 29.6% to 6.68m passengers, although the rise was a little flattering considering the increase compares with July 2014 when traffic numbers were negatively affected by a $1bn runway refurbishment programme over an 80-day period.

 

Exact numbers totalled 6,682,676 compared to 5,155,771 in July last year 2014, while the first seven months of 2015 saw a total of 44,981,967 passengers, up 12.9% compared to 39,831,861 in the comparable period in 2014.

 

Eastern Europe recorded the strongest growth again in July, up 77.6%, thanks largely to new services from flydubai to Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia – and Emirates’ services to Hungary.

 

Passengers from countries within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were the second largest group [with the GCC consisting of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman-Ed]. Passengers from these countries rose by +55.1%, followed by North America (+49.1%) and Russia and the CIS countries (+41.4%).

 

 

In terms of total passenger numbers the GCC outperformed the rest of the regions (+374,422   passengers), followed by the Indian subcontinent (+349,493) and Western Europe (+245,701 passengers). The top five countries in terms of passenger numbers were India, UK, Saudi Arabia, USA and Pakistan, with London, Doha, Kuwait, Mumbai and Jeddah heading up the list of most popular destinations served from DXB.

 

Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports said: “Over 6m passengers per month has become the norm at DXB and we expect that to continue for the remainder of the year. Despite the high volumes, we have maintained service levels by implementing detailed operational plans, boosting staff levels [and] intensifying communication efforts with our business partners and customers.”

 

Meanwhile, Dubai Airports also reported that the number of flights rose dramatically in July to 33,650, a rise of 35% over the 24,925 recorded during July 2014. This was once again due to the runway closure comparison effect. Year-to-date flight movements in 2015 totalled 231,081, up 18.8% from 194,554 aircraft movements recorded during the same period last year.