Dubai airport posts best quarter in two years as travel surges
The airport now expects annual traffic to reach 58.3 million, exceeding a prior forecast of 57 million.
A surge in demand helped Dubai’s main airport post its best quarter since the coronavirus pandemic began, and the Gulf hub may reach pre-Covid levels of travel earlier than expected.“We’ve revised our year-end forecast and think we’ll be close to pre-pandemic levels perhaps during 2024 — the original idea was 2025 or even beyond,” Dubai Airports Chief Executive Officer Paul Griffiths said on Bloomberg TV. “People are engaging in revenge tourism after two years of lockdown, they’re rushing out to buy tickets.”First-quarter passenger volumes at the airport rose to 13.6 million, up 15.7% from last quarter, and more than doubling from a year earlier. The airport now expects annual traffic to reach 58.3 million, exceeding a prior forecast of 57 million. Also read: Gangster Vikas Lagarpuria, wanted in connection with multi-crore Gurugram heist, held in Dubai“While the recovery was initially led by point-to-point traffic, which continues to exceed pre-pandemic levels, the opening of international travel across many key markets has enabled transfer traffic to rebound to 60% of 2019 levels,” Griffiths said in a statement. India was the top destination, followed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the UK. Also read: Cars with empty number plates on Dubai roads for world hunger cause | VideoThe comments echo Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who said on Tuesday the airline aims to return to full capacity by the end of 2022 and to break even over the period having been profitable since the start of the year.
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