Dubai Dubbed World’s BusiestAirport

This year, for the second year in a row, Dubai International airport can keep its reigning title as the world’s busiest airport in 2015. Back in 2014, Dubai overtook London’s Heathrow airport as busiest airport in the world.

Dubai airport is the primary airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world’s busiest airport in international airport traffic. It is the third busiest airport in passenger traffic, and the sixth busiest for cargo traffic. It also the busiest hub for the Airbus A380, the double-decker wide-body, four-engine jet airliner that is the world’s largest passenger airline, and can only operate out of airports that have upgraded their facilities to accommodate it.

Dubai airport’s most recent information shows that passenger traffic rose to 6.01 million passengers, from 5.57 million passengers the year before. As of November of 2015, it’s 11 month traffic was higher than Heathrow’s full year traffic.

In a statement Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports said: “We are very pleased with the growth in passenger traffic at DXB in 2015 during which the airport registered an average monthly traffic of nearly 6.5 million customers. We are sure the seasonal peaks that we experienced in December will help round off the year with an impressive annual figure.”

Dubai International is situated in the Al Garhoud district. 2.5 miles east of Dubai and is spread over seven thousand acres of land. It is the home hub of the international airlines Emirates and flydubai, and Dubai International constitutes 21% of the employment in Dubai, and can be attributed to around 27% of Dubai’s GDP.

A senior aviation analyst said that the airport looks poised to cement its place as the world’s number one airport. The rise in traffic throughout 2015 and particularly the dramatic growth at the end months of the year demonstrate the strength and diversity of the airport.

“The airport looks primed to hold onto the number one crown and significantly expand its capabilities with the opening of a new concourse later this year,” Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at Strategic Aero Research, told Khaleej Times.

The airport consists of three terminals, and has a total capacity of 75 million passengers annually. Terminal 3 is the second largest building in the world by floor space and the largest airport terminal in the world. As of January of 2015, there were over 8,000 weekly flights operated by 140 airlines to over 270 destinations across all six inhabited continents.