Dubai Airport Busiest for Global Travel as Virus Persists

By Derrick Bangura.

With nearly 29 million people passing through the global gateway last year, Dubai’s major airport announced Tuesday that it has retained its title as the world’s busiest for international travel.

The passenger numbers for 2021 are optimistic for Dubai’s tourism-driven economy, which is seen as a vital link between East and West. The figures show that international travel has increased since the coronavirus epidemic in 2020, which resulted in unprecedented worldwide lockdowns and border restrictions. In comparison to 2020, which saw approximately 26 million passengers, last year’s statistic indicates a 12 percent rise in traffic at Dubai International Airport.
Still, even with 29.1 million passengers crisscrossing last year through Dubai International Airport, or DXB, the figure is nowhere near the pre-pandemic milestone of 86.4 million in annual traffic logged by the airport in 2019.

Dubai is currently hosting the six-month-long World’s Fair, which was delayed by a year due to the pandemic. Expo 2020, which opened in October and runs until the end of March, has attracted millions of visitors as well as heads of state, royalty and celebrities, helping to further cement Dubai’s reputation as a global destination. It’s unclear, though, what the overall contribution of the Expo has been to Dubai’s economic recovery.

Just over 70% of Dubai’s airport traveler figures last year represent arrivals, with much of that likely residents traveling to and from the emirate. Prior to the pandemic, around half of all passenger figures were transiting through Dubai.

CEO of Dubai Airports, Paul Griffiths, said DXB forecasts 57 million travelers to come through the airport this year, and a full recovery to pre-pandemic figures by 2024.

“Dubai has done such a good job in reassuring travelers. It’s a safe city to visit and to come and holiday and do business. So I think the the actual trends to recovery are very encouraging, indeed,” Griffiths said.

It marks the eighth consecutive year that Dubai International Airport clinches the mantle of the world’s busiest for international travel, surpassing London’s Heathrow and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson for global travelers, although the latter is among the busiest in terms of overall passenger traffic.

The largest share of traffic to Dubai came from India, with 4.2 million travelers, followed by Pakistan, with 1.8 million travelers last year. A key growth market for travel to and from Dubai is neighboring Saudi Arabia, which is actively working to attract business and tourism in direct competition with Dubai and the wider United Arab Emirates.

The UAE is home to more than 100,000 British citizens. Dubai’s main airport logged 1.2 million passengers from the U.K. last year, including 77,000 in December alone.

Dubai, under orders from the United Arab Emirates aviation authority, was forced to ground all passenger flights and close its airports for eight weeks in spring of 2020. Unlike the UAE’s capital of Abu Dhabi, though, Dubai quickly reopened its doors to travelers. Dubai has not required proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter and does not require a negative virus test to enter most places. This approach has not come without a cost. The UAE was red-listed as a “do not travel” country by the U.K., U.S. and other nations for much of last year.

“What we’re now trying to do is campaign globally for the relaxation of travel restrictions and testing,” Griffiths said. “But we now see the requirement for that is receding. We just need to get governments to recognize that fact and act quickly to remove the remaining travel restrictions.”
Overall, coronavirus infection rates in the UAE are still rather low. The country has been aggressive in immunizing its population of about 9 million people against COVID-19, the majority of whom are foreign residents who have all received the vaccine for free.

While masks are still compulsory in public locations in Dubai, the city-existence state’s can otherwise feel unaffected by the pandemic. Novak Djokovic, a Serbian tennis player, competed in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship this week, his first competition since being banned from Australia and missing the year’s first Grand Slam event due to his reluctance to be vaccinated against COVID-19.