26 million passengers travel through DXB in 2020 following disastrous Q2 and positive Q4
Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths has said he is “confident of a steady but optimistic outlook” despite a 70 percent decrease in traffic at Dubai International (DXB) last year.
Just under 26 million passengers travelled through DXB in 2020 after international air travel came to a halt in April because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“These DXB passenger traffic figures are reflective of that testing environment, but also come with an element of hope and confidence,” said Mr Griffiths.
Passenger numbers at DXB fell 20 percent in the first quarter of 2020. Traffic plummeted in Q2 before the UAE opened its airspace on 23 June and Dubai opened for tourism on 7 July. The average customer traffic figures in Q3 and Q4 peaked at 1.3 million. December traffic hit 2.2 million customers.
Mr Griffiths said that key to rebuilding the travel sector is regaining customer confidence through vaccination programmes.
“This, along with technology that will allow for seamless and contactless travel, will once encourage more people to get on a plane. In addition, we have transformed our DXB and DWC cargo operations. As an intercontinental hub we are well positioned to support the distribution of vaccines from the countries manufacturing them, to the world.”
He added: “Looking forward, we are confident of a steady, but optimistic outlook. We are constantly monitoring future schedules and bookings, working with airlines on their plans to return to DXB and new routes to be introduced. This will allow us to ensure we have sufficient capacity and operational capability available to support as the recovery gains pace.”
DXB is currently serving 142 destinations (61 percent recovery) in 80 markets (85 percent recovery) on 56 airlines (75 percent recovery). There was some growth through the government alliances being made in the latter part of the year, allowing flights to and from Israel, Dubai Airports said.
India retained its position as the top destination country for DXB by passenger numbers, with traffic for 2020 reaching 4.3 million, followed by the UK with 1.89 million customers and Pakistan coming in third with 1.86 million customers. Other destination countries of note include Saudi Arabia with 1.45 million customers in 2020.
The top three cities were London (1.15 million customers), Mumbai (772,000 customers) and Delhi with 722,000 customers.
DXB handled 49,603 movements during the fourth quarter (-50 percent) bringing the annual flight movements to 183,993 (-51 percent) while the average number of customers per flight decreased to 188, -20 percent annually.
DXB handled 571,718 tonnes of cargo in the fourth quarter (-13 percent) with the annual airfreight volume reaching 1,932,022 tonnes (-23 percent) during 2020.
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