Dubai International became the busiest airport globally for international passengers in the first quarter, overtaking London's Heathrow, and illustrating the stellar growth of Emirates Airline in less than 30 years of operations.
Dubai's main hub, the home of Emirates, handled 18.36 million international passengers in the first quarter of the year, Dubai Airports said in a statement Monday. Heathrow saw a total 16.1 million people pass through the airport in the same period, according to statements on the airport's website.
Heathrow pipped Dubai last year to the top spot for international traffic, followed by Hong Kong and Paris, according to official figures from Airports Council International, a global trade body, which hasn't released first quarter figures yet.
Statements from all four airports show Dubai to be the busiest airport for international passengers and the fastest-growing in the first quarter, as the number of people passing through the hub increased 11.4%, compared with the same period a year earlier.
"The growth in passenger and freight traffic supports our continued investment in expanding and improving our facilities at Dubai International," said Paul Griffiths, chief executive officer of Dubai Airports.
Dubai International's growth is being driven by Emirates and its strategy of using widebody aircraft to connect passengers in Asia and Australasia with Europe and the U.S. via a stop in its home hub. The airline carried nearly 40 million passengers in its last fiscal year. It and lower-cost, shorter-haul carrier flydubai, which is also based at Dubai International and growing apace, helped add 28 new destinations to the airport last year.
Having started operations in 1985, Emirates now serves 142 destinations in 80 countries and territories making it one of the largest carriers in the world, and it plans to grow further. The airline has 374 jets on order with Boeing Co. and Airbus Group worth a combined $162 billion. That is on top of the 218 it currently flies, although many of those aircraft will replace some of the current fleet.
Flydubai is also soaring. It increased passengers last year by 38% to 6.8 million. To cater for forecast growth of both Emirates and flydubai, Dubai Airports has plans to increase capacity at Dubai International from 75 million currently to 100 million by 2020.
The airport may still be edged out by Heathrow for the full year, as Dubai International plans an 80-day improvement project on its two runways on May 1 that will reduce the number of flights at the airport by 24%, and impact Emirates full-year revenues by $272 million.
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