India tops list for highest number of passengers at Dubai airport with 11.9 million arrivals

Dubai International Airport emerges as the world's busiest for international travel, with India leading in passenger traffic.

India emerged at the top spot for the highest number of passengers flying through the Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, with traffic totalling 11.9 million guests, the airport announced on Monday.

According to a statement, the Dubai airport, known as DXB, surpassed not only its own yearly forecast but also pre-pandemic levels of traffic.

In 2023, DXB witnessed a surge in passenger numbers, reaching 86.9 million passengers (86,994,365), an impressive year-on-year increase of 31.7%.

It was just under a per cent higher than the passenger numbers recorded in 2019 (86.4 million), the numbers were driven by robust growth in the second half of the year during which the airport recorded a total of 45.4 million guests.

With 7.8 million guests, December was the busiest month in the fourth quarter during which the airport welcomed a total of 22.4 million guests, a year-on-year growth of 13.8 per cent compared to Q4 of last year. Q3 remained the quarter with the highest traffic since 2019 with 23 million guests while August, with 7.9 million guests, was the month with the highest traffic.

DXB is currently connected to 262 destinations across 104 countries through 102 international carriers, according to data for 2023.

India claimed the top spot among destination countries with traffic totalling 11.9 million guests, followed by Saudi Arabia with 6.7 million guests and the U.K. with 5.9 million guests. Other country markets of note include Pakistan (4.2 million), the U.S. (3.6 million), Russia (2.5 million), and Germany (2.5 million).