Dubai International Airport's passenger traffic has continued to rise in the first quarter and beyond, despite the current global economic downturn, with an increase of 2% to 9.5m passengers in Q1, including a strong January

rise of 6% to 3.3m passengers. Its Q1 result has been followed by a strong April result showing a 6.5% increase to 3.2m passengers.

Dubai International is the only airport among the world's top ten airports to register positive international passenger growth for the last two consecutive quarters, recording 7.1% in the last quarter of 2008, and the aforementioned two per cent in the first quarter of this year.

Commenting, Dubai Airport CEO Paul Griffiths said: ‘The results for April are ahead of our expectations and this bodes well for the rest of the year. The latest figures are very encouraging, and considering that the travel season is yet to peak, we are very positive that the second quarter will show better results,’ he said.

Griffiths added that as many as five new international carriers have been added to Dubai International's list of airlines in the first five months this year. ‘There are indications that we will continue to welcome new airlines at more or less the same rate over the coming months, and this will add to our current growth, much of which is a direct result of the rebound in traffic from Western Europe, the US and Russia,’ he said.

He added that the launch of Dubai's own budget airline flydubai from Terminal 2 in June will also play an important role in pushing the airport's passenger growth. Dubai International currently caters to over 125 airlines flying to more than 210 destinations.