Dubai is one of several cities likely to join the ‘100 million passengers club’ in 2024, reported Khaleej Times on Monday, citing date from the Centre for Aviation (CAPA), a market intelligence firm for the aviation and travel industry.

In November, Dubai Airports raised its 2023 annual passenger forecast to 86.8 million, surpassing 2019 traffic. Dubai Airports manages Dubai International (DXB) and Al Maktoum International (DWC).

With a current capacity of 100 million passengers annually, the world’s largest hub recorded 22.9 million passengers in Q3 – the highest quarterly traffic since 2019, taking the total year-to-date traffic for the first nine months of the year to 64.5 million passengers, up 39.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2022 and 1 per cent above 2019, added Khaleej Times.

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Dubai Airports is also continually deploying innovative technologies, while expanding and refurbishing existing infrastructures which is likely to increase the airport’s capacity to 120 million.

“In 1961, we started with 42,000 passengers. Now it’s 7.5 million a month … We now have 95 airlines and 254 individual cities. And of course, we’re not going to stop there,” Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, was quoted as saying by Khaleej Times.

CAPA cited the 2000s as a strong decade for global aviation, with an additional 1.8 billion annual passengers travelling by air by the end of the decade. This has been further enhanced by the aviation industry reaching 90% of pre-COVID levels across almost all geographic markets, some even crossing that threshold.

Istanbul too is slated to rejoin the 100-million passenger club, as it currently has the largest network of routes in the world at a single airport, with more than 300 direct routes at Istanbul Airport, and a further 125 at the Sabiha Gökçen Airport.

Dubai airport expects to surpass pre-pandemic passenger numbers in 2023

An earlier report published by Dubai Airports noted India as the city’s top country destination in terms of traffic volume, followed by Saudi Arabia with 4.8 million passengers, the UK (4.4 million passengers) and Pakistan with 3.1 million passengers.

The article, originally published on January 8, 2024, was updated on January 10, 2024 to reflect that Istanbul Airport has over 300 direct routes. The error is regretted, and has been rectified.