Busy Dubai airport records 40% drop in passenger traffic
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest airport for international travel, handled some 40% less passenger traffic in the first half of 2021, compared to the same period last year, its chief executive said this week.
The decline came as more contagious coronavirus variants cut off the hub’s biggest source markets and continued to clobber the global aviation industry.
However, CEO Paul Griffiths remains optimistic for the crucial east-west transit point as authorities gradually reopen Dubai’s key routes to the Indian subcontinent and Britain.
The 10.6 million passengers that passed through the airport over the past six months “is still very positive,” Griffiths said Wednesday. “I think coupled with the restrictions easing that we’re now seeing, (it) will bode very well for a satisfactory end to the year.”
The airport, which saw 86.4 million people squeeze through before the pandemic hit in 2019, has held the title of the world’s busiest since it beat out London’s Heathrow seven years ago. It even kept the crown as the virus turned the world’s biggest airports into massive voids. But the once-teeming terminals still have a long way to go before seeing pre-pandemic passenger levels.
The hopes stoked by the United Arab Emirates’ speedy vaccination campaign took a hit as the delta variant emerged, prompting familiar border closures and capacity cuts, and hurting the mammoth airport, hub of long-haul carrier Emirates. Dubai World Central, the Gulf city’s second airport that went out of use for commercial flights during the pandemic, appears to be a parking lot for Emirates’ iconic fleet of doubledecker Airbus A380s.
Although the UAE recently lifted an entry ban on India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, which are home to most of the vast foreign workforce in the federation, stringent vaccination requirements still bar many from boarding flights to the country.
But there are reasons to expect a rebound, Griffiths said.
One of the airport’s two main terminals, mothballed amid the pandemic, returned to use last month to prepare for an influx of holiday-makers escaping wintry weather and attending the World Expo in October.
And after months of confusion, the U.K. last week removed the UAE from its “red list” that ordered all travelers to quarantine for 10 days in government-approved hotels.
The stakes are high for Dubai, where the economy thrives on travel and tourism. Still there are signs of uncertainty, with the airport yet to rehire any of the 5,000 employees it furloughed during the the pandemic last year.
But when asked whether the airport would hold on to its title — one of many prized superlatives in the extravagant emirate home to the world’s tallest building and biggest mall — Griffiths didn’t miss a beat: “I have no doubt in my mind.”