Passenger traffic at Dubai International grew year-on-year by 4.5 per cent, after 7.85 million passengers travelled through the airport during March.

Taking into consideration the earlier Easter holiday period, passenger figures climbed from 7,511,431 during the same period in 2017, to 7,852,501 in March of this year.

Overall passenger numbers are up 1.1 per cent during the first quarter of 2018 rising to 22,741,194 compared to 22,496,596 recorded during the same period in 2017.

The number of passenger flights in March fell 1.5 per cent to 34,126 compared to 34,634 last year, however the passengers per flight continued to be above industry average in March with 230. 

Year-to-date flight numbers came in at 98,839, down 1.8 per cent compared to 100,638 recorded during the first quarter of 2017 and the average number of passengers per flight in the first three months of the year rose to 230, compared to 224 during the corresponding period in 2017, an increase of 2.7 per cent.

London topped the list of destination cities during the month of March with 348,434 passengers, followed by 216,970 passengers from Mumbai and Bangkok with 208,873 passengers.

India remained the top destination country during March with a total of 1,043,580 passengers, followed by the UK (572,080 passengers), Saudi Arabia (566,292), Pakistan (389,090) and Germany (279,087).

Freight volumes recorded during the month sat at 222,045 tonnes passing through DXB, 5.7 per cent down from the 235,503 during the same period last year.