DUBAI WORLD CENTRAL ENJOYS BEST YEAR YET

Dubai World Central (DWC) registered its best year to date in 2019, handling a record 1.6 million passengers, although the figures are slightly misleading as the huge 81.5% upturn in traffic owes a lot to the transfer of flights to the airport from Dubai International (DXB) while its southern runway was being revamped.

Indeed, DXB’s southern runway was closed for 45 days between April and May 2019 and the necessary rehabiliation work led to a significant increase in flights taking off and landing at DWC instead of the world’s busiest international airport.

Year-on-year traffic at DWC also increased in the final quarter of the year compared with 2018 as the gateway welcomed 363,626 customers in Q4 (+38.2%), mainly due to seasonal operations by chartered airlines.

Top destinations in 2019

Regions contributing to traffic growth at DWC during 2019 were CIS (583,763), followed by South Asia (380,000), and the GCC (281,244). 

Russia was the top country destination with 549,806 customers followed by Saudi Arabia (201,138) and India (193,900). The top cities served by the DWC network included Moscow (253,092), Budapest (60,098) and Jeddah (55,873)

Flights

There were 8,871 flights during Q4 bringing the annual total to 36,949 movements (+23.3%).

Cargo

With a total of 234,741 tonnes of freight in recorded in Q4, DWC’s annual cargo volume reached 911,571 tonnes (-7.7%).

DWC is currently served by six passenger airlines which operate an average of 30 weekly flights to 45 international destinations around the world.

It is also home to 17 cargo operators that operate to 45 cities globally.