Dubai International (DXB) has maintained its position as the world’s busiest international passenger hub after handling 64.5 million passengers in the first nine months of 2019.

A total of 23,217,492 passengers travelled through DXB in the third quarter (-2.4% year-on-year), bringing year-to-date traffic to 64,495,241 (-4.5% year-on-year). The slight contraction in year-to-date numbers is mainly the result of the closure of one of DXB’s two runways for 45 days. This was due to a runway rehabilitation project from May to April and the impact of the worldwide grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft since March 2018.

With 97,498 flights recorded in Q3, year-to-date flight numbers reached 275, 882, down 9.9% from last year.

India retained its position as DXB’s top country by passengers numbers — traffic for the first nine months reached 8.8 million customers. Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom followed with 4.8 million and 4.6 million customers respectively.

London (2.7 million customers), Mumbai (1.7 million customers) and Riyadh (1.6 million customers) were the top three cities. Last year (20 December), the airport welcomed its billionth passenger.

This was preceded by the unveiling of its new brand in February 2019 to signify its transition from airport operator to a consumer led company and the launch of a tender for commercial partners to develop and operate a ‘world-class e-commerce solution’ for retail, food and hospitality services across DXB.