Dubai International retained its position as the world’s number one airport for international passengers for the fourth consecutive year with annual traffic for 2017 reaching 88.2 million passengers, according to the annual traffic report issued by operator Dubai Airports today.

Propelled by high traffic volumes averaging 7.35 million passengers per month throughout the year, including the record months of January, July and August when traffic breached the eight-million passenger mark, DXB’s traffic reached 88,242,099 passengers for the full year, up 5.5 per cent compared to 83,654,250 passengers recorded during 2016.

The airport welcomed 7,854,657 passengers in December, up 1.9 per cent compared to 7,706,351 recorded in the same month in 2016.

DXB welcomed six new scheduled passenger airlines during the year, including SalamAir, Badr Airlines, and Air Moldova, while home based carriers Emirates and flydubai added three and ten new passenger destinations and increased frequency/capacity on 31 and 22 routes respectively.

India continued its domination run as the single largest destination country for DXB with 12,060,435 passengers in 2017, up 5.4 per cent compared to 11,440,215 passengers recorded in 2016.

The UK claimed the second spot with 6,466,404 passengers (up 6.7 per cent), overtaking Saudi Arabia which recorded 6,364,598 passengers (4.6 per cent).

Markets showing the most significant growth during the year included Russia with passenger numbers surging 28 per cent to 1,339,534 and China with 2,212,179 passengers, up 19.4 per cent over 2016.

Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, said: “It was a very successful year for DXB as we not only achieved robust growth in traffic to solidify our position as the world’s number one international airport but also delighted our customers with a range of new and exciting services and innovative products.

“With passenger traffic expected to reach 90.3 million in 2018, our focus in the new year will be on the DXB Plus programme which aims to expand the airport’s annual capacity to 118 million passengers through process improvements and use of new technology.”