Dubai International recorded the busiest first half in its history with 27.9 million passengers passing through its three terminals between January and June this year, according to the traffic report issued today by airport operator Dubai Airports.

Dubai International handled a total of 4,714,746 passengers in June, a robust growth of 16 per cent from the 4,065,809 who passed through the airport in June 2011.

The year to date traffic reached 27,931,639 up 13.7 per cent from 24,567,818 in the first half of 2011.

The average monthly passenger traffic recorded in the first six months of the year stood at 4.65 million compared to 4.09 million during the corresponding period in 2011.

Aircraft movements in June totalled 27,428, up 5.1 per cent from 26,101 registered during the same period in 2011.

Year to date aircraft movements totalled 170,249, an increase of 6.8 per cent compared to 159,372 recorded during the first half of 2011.

“Our record first half had some interesting story lines, highlighted by the launch of 12 new routes, the addition of four new airlines and a surge in traffic on routes to Saudi Arabia, USA, Qatar and Australia,”  said Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports.

“On the service side we boosted our May I Help You staff compliment to 500 people, to provide additional assistance to customers to speed their journey through the terminals.

“We expanded our transfer areas to ease connections and we launched new high-tech Information Zones and a new downloadable app called myDXB, both of which provide information on flights and gate numbers as well as way-finding to locate customer-facing services.”