Eastern Europe was the fastest expanding market during the first three months of 2017 with a 33.3% hike in passenger footfall.
Asia saw the second largest growth at 22.6%, followed by South America with a 22.2% rise.
Passenger traffic at Dubai’s International Airport saw a rise of 7.4% during the first quarter of 2017, welcoming almost 22.5 million travelers.
The year to date follows a 3.8% increase for March with 7.5 million passengers, a more modest growth due to Easter falling in April this year but in March in 2016. The number of passenger flights in March was up 1%, while year-to-date figures rose by just 0.5% to 100,638 flights.
The impact of travel bans and electronic device restrictions has affected North America’s figures, which showed a 4.3% decrease in passenger traffic in March 2017 compared with the same period last year.
India remained the top destination country during Q1 with just over 3 million passengers, with the UK following with 1.6 million and Saudi Arabia coming third with almost 1.6 million passengers.
London was the top destination city with almost 975,000 passengers, followed by Doha, Qatar; Bangkok, Thailand; and Mumbai, India.
