Dubai International Airport has maintained its position as the world's busiest airport for international travelers, with traffic reaching 64.5 million passengers in the first nine months of this year.

Dubai Airports Corporation said in a statement yesterday that the third quarter of this year saw 23,217,492 passengers traveling through Dubai International Airport (a decrease of 2.4% compared to the same period last year), bringing the number of passengers since the beginning of the year until the end of the year. Last September, 64,495,241 passengers (down 4.5% compared to the same period last year).

The company attributed the slight decline in figures since the beginning of the year to the closure of one of the runways of Dubai International Airport for 45 days to complete the rehabilitation of the runway during the months of April and May, in addition to the global ban on the Boeing 737 Max since March of this year.

Waiting times at Dubai International Airport fell by 15% in the first nine months of 2019, the company said.

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Air cargo handled by Dubai International Airport recorded a total of 636,575 tons of cargo during the third quarter (down 5.9% compared to the same period last year), bringing the total cargo volume since the beginning of the year to 1,886,000. And 237 tons, a decrease of 4.1%.

This decrease is due to the fact that most of the cargo traffic at Dubai International Airport is the passenger baggage carried by the aircraft, which was affected by the decrease in capacity during the runway rehabilitation project.

Top Destinations

India retained its position as the largest destination for Dubai International Airport in terms of passenger traffic, reaching 8.8 million passengers in the first nine months of this year, followed by Saudi Arabia with 4.8 million passengers, followed by the UK with 4.6 million passengers.

Other top destinations included Pakistan (three million passengers), the United States (2.4 million) and China (1.9 million).

The top cities in terms of passenger numbers were London (2.7 million passengers), Mumbai (1.7 million passengers) and Riyadh (1.6 million passengers).

Aircraft movement

During the third quarter of this year, Dubai International Airport recorded 97,498 flights taking off and landing, bringing the total number of flights since the beginning of the year to 275,882, down 9.9% from last year.