Dubai International passenger traffic climbs 29.6 percent

Dubai Airports announced on Thursday that 6.68 million passengers passed through Dubai International in July. The number represents an almost 30 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

Eastern Europe was the strongest growing region in July, reaching 77 percent, driven mainly by flydubai’s new services to Slovakia, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Croatia, and Emirates service to Hungary. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) placed second, followed by North America and Russia.

In terms of total passenger numbers, the GCC outperformed the rest of the regions, with more than 370 thousand passengers, followed by the Indian subcontinent and Western Europe. The top five countries in terms of passenger numbers were India, U.K., Saudi Arabia, U.S. and Pakistan with London, Doha, Kuwait, Mumbai and Jeddah.

The number of flights had 35 percent increase, with 33,650 compared to 24,925 registered in July 2014.

Dubai International freight volumes increased eight percent in July to 205,526 tons compared to 190,376 tons in July 2014, when volumes were affected by capacity reductions caused during the runway program. During the first seven months of 2015 DXB handled 1,438,904 tons of freight up 2.7 percent from 1,401,743 tons handled during the same period last year.