Dubai International Airport (DXB) more than doubled its annual passenger traffic in 2022, exceeding its own forecast. The airport handled 66.1 million passengers in 2022, with an increase of 127 % over last year and exceeding its forecast of 64.3 million. However, the airport is still long way off from reaching the 86.4 million pre-pandemic mark.
Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, said: "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."
Passenger traffic in the last three months of 2022 jumped 67% annually to 19.7 million, marking the airport's busiest quarter since 2019, Dubai airport said in a statement. The airport reported December as its busiest month of the year with 7.1 million passengers, the first time since January 2020 that Dubai International Airport's monthly traffic hit the 7 million-mark.
The airport anticipates the passenger number to cross 78 million by the end of 2023.
“A full recovery to pre-pandemic levels on a monthly basis could come by the end of this year or the beginning of 2024, if the monthly passenger figures reach 7.5 million,” Griffiths added. “The magic number to watch is the monthly passenger count, we were [at] over 7 million monthly passengers in December last year, and to reach the pre-pandemic highs we've experienced before, we would have to be up at 7.5 million passengers per month.”
The top destination country by passenger volume was once again India at 9.8 million, followed by Saudi Arabia, 4.9 million and the UK at 4.6 million passengers.
DXB currently serves seven destinations in China with around 25 flights a week operated by five airlines, and there is still room for expansion. CEO Griffiths believes the airport should fully recover its pre-pandemic capacity by Q4 2023.