Dubai International Airport (DXB) in the UAE has recorded passenger numbers of 66 million in 2022, marking a year-on-year surge of 127%.
The last three months of 2022 (Q4) alone saw an influx of 19.7 million passengers, a 67% increase from the same period in 2021.
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DXB noted that December became the busiest month last year with passenger traffic of 7.1 million while Q4 2022 was the busiest quarter since 2019.
Flight movements at DXB reached 96,701 in Q4 2022, with 343,339 annual flight movements, a year-on-year rise of 47%.
The average number of passengers per flight rose by 33% to 204.
However, cargo volumes at the airport slumped 31.7% in Q4 2022 to 420,125t from 614,834t in the same quarter a year ago.
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By GlobalDataIn 2022, the airport handled more than 1.7 million tonnes of cargo, a 25.5% decline, due to a shift of all key freight operators back to Dubai World Central (DWC), as well as the ‘return of pax-freighter aircraft back to passenger operations’.
India remained DXB’s top destination country last year with passenger footfall of 9.8 million.
DXB CEO Paul Griffiths said: “Welcoming DXB’s stellar performance as the perfect high note on which to start the new year.
“We knew it was the year when growth would return to the air travel sector in a big way, but the surge was much stronger than anticipated and we had to do our best to turn that challenge into an opportunity.
“Thanks to the planning, preparation, and all the collaboration and hard work of our people across the airport community, we were ready to meet the challenge of rapid recovery in customer numbers while delivering significant improvement in our service quality across the board.”
