By Muzaffar Rizvi www.khaleejtimes.com
Passenger traffic at Dubai International remained above the five million mark for the 19th straight month in July despite the closure of its two runways for maintenance and upgrading for a period of 80 days.
The airport maintained its growth trend for the year so far as passenger numbers rose by 4.9 per cent to 39.83 million during the January-to-July 2014 period, up from 37.97 million passengers recorded in the same period last year.
According to latest data released by Dubai Airports, passenger traffic at Dubai International dropped by 2.9 per cent from a year earlier to 5.15 million in July as construction work temporarily reduced its capacity. The airport cut back flights by about 26 per cent for 80 days from May 1 due to maintenance and refurbishment of both runways. Flight operations went back to normal on July 21.
“We are back to business as usual at Dubai International,” said Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports.
He said July was a story of two distinct halves: as anticipated, traffic continued to be impacted by the runway refurbishment programme in the first part of the month. “But, crucially, July also marked the successful reopening of both Dubai International’s runways, just in time to accommodate the holiday rush in the last week of the month when we experienced some of the busiest days on record,” he added. More info
