Dubai’s air passenger traffic down by 68% in Q1

Dubai International Airport received 5.75 million passengers in the first quarter of 2021, down 67.8 per cent compared to the same period last year due to the spread of the coronavirus, the facility operator, Dubai Airports, announced yesterday.

Cargo volumes stood at 550,811 tonnes during the same period, marking a 3.2 per cent increase compared to the same period last year, the company said in a statement. It added that only 32,900 flights used the airport during the period, down 48 per cent compared to a total of 63,400 the year before.

The authority pointed out that the number of passengers travelling through Dubai airport last year dropped 70 per cent, to 26.3 million. “In 2019, 86.4 million passengers travelled through Dubai,” it noted.

The statement said that it was planning to receive a total of 100 million passengers in 2020 before the outbreak.

Aviation has been one of the sectors that was most affected by the pandemic in 2020. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said earlier that the sector would continue to suffer “until 2024”.

So far, a total of 516,301 people have contracted the virus in the UAE, 1,580 of whom have died, and 497,140 others have recovered, according to the US’ Worldometers.

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