And the airport confirmed in a statement that the total number of passengers through Dubai International Airport during the year 2022 reached “about 66,069,981 million passengers, an increase of 127% on an annual basis.”
In 2021, Dubai Airport received about 29.1 million passengers, and the authorities expected the arrival of 57 million passengers in 2022.
India, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom ranked in the top three in terms of international destinations.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the Russian market since … tensions between Ukraine and Russia” a year ago, Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths told AFP.
About 1.9 million Russian travelers came via Dubai, which is “more than double” the number in 2021, according to Griffiths.
The position of the United Arab Emirates, which called for ending the war on Ukraine without criticizing Russia, attracted a large number of wealthy Russians fleeing the imposition of Western sanctions on their country.
In 2020, 25.9 million people traveled through Dubai Airport, a whopping 70 percent decrease compared to 2019, when more than 86 million people traveled. Before the pandemic in 2019, Dubai received about 16 million visitors, before it closed its doors for months due to the epidemic, then reopened in mid-2020 to become one of the first destinations to receive visitors fleeing the closures.
© 2023 AFP