Dubai World Central (DWC) has seen a 29.5% hike in passenger footfall for the first three months of the year, with 333,780 travelers passing through its doors.
Dubai’s second international hub’s top five destinations for the period were Doha, Qatar; Moscow, Russia; Kathmandu, Nepal; Amman, Jordan; and Budapest, Hungary. Air freight volumes also saw a rise of 6.5%, with 211,144 tons being handled. DWC is ranked as the 20th busiest airport in the world for international air freight volumes despite only opening in 2010.
On the other end of the spectrum, aircraft movements of passenger, cargo, general aviation and helicopters totaled 9,811, down 8.9% on the same period in 2016.
Paul Griffiths, Dubai Airports CEO, commented, “DWC is starting to make its mark as an emerging regional hub. We expect to surpass the 1 million passenger mark for the first time this year with 1.1 million expected to use the airport in 2017.
“The expansion of the existing passenger terminal building is well underway and will boost capacity at DWC to 26 million passengers by next year. DWC remains an important element of our strategy to provide timely capacity to accommodate passenger and cargo traffic growth.
“DWC offers airlines easy availability of slots, quick turn-around times and access to new catchment area while passengers benefit from short walking distances and quit transit times though the airport.”
