Dubai Airport Features In 5 Out Of 10 Busiest Routes Worldwide

In terms of seats, Dubai International Airport has been featured in five of the top 10 global busiest routes in the world.

According to OAG, a provider of data on global flight information, airports and airlines, Dubai witnessed frequent passenger traffic growth on Gulf and Indian routes following the recovery in the aviation sector.

Last year, Dubai-Riyadh was the second busiest route globally, with 40 flights per day and 3.191 million seats. Whereas Dubai-London and Dubai-Jeddah were the fourth and sixth busiest routes with 2.67 and 2.425 million seats respectively.

On the other hand, Mumbai-Dubai and Delhi-Dubai were the eighth and 10th busiest routes globally by seat capacity at 1.977 million and 1.898 million, respectively.

The data features scheduled seats between October 2021 and September 2022.

According to the data received from The Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship, Dubai received 23,672,468 passengers in 2022 through different ports. Of these, 21,817,022 arrived through Dubai’s two airports.

Dubai was one of the first cities to welcome foreigners after the pandemic, supporting the aviation sector to make a faster and better comeback. The growth was aided by local carriers Emirates and FlyDubai also, bringing back their capacity at a fast pace after the pandemic and now they serve hundreds of routes across all the continents.

Dubai International was the busiest international airport, too, in December 2022 with total seats of 4.556 million.

OAG said the Middle East plays an important role in aviation globally with four of the top 10 high-density routes are within the region. Cairo-Jeddah was the busiest route 3.234 million seats globally during the 12-month period.

“This shift in focus to the Middle East partly reflects the slower pace of a travel recovery across Asia, where previously many of the key Asian trunk routes dominated the busiest international routes, and the ambitions of Saudi Arabia towards their Vision 2030 goal which will see air traffic grow substantially in the next decade,” OAG said.

Interestingly, Dubai-Los Angeles was the 10th longest route served by airlines with a seating capacity of 30,960 as of September 2022.