Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) today released the May 2009 traffic figures for Abu Dhabi International Airport, which show a year on year increase of 6.6 per cent in passenger traffic. Aircraft movements increased by 9.4 per cent whilst cargo recorded a 6.4 per cent increase compared to the same month last year. Passenger traffic for the year to date (YTD) shows an increase of 8.2 per cent, with 3,793,693 passengers handled through the airport during this period.
Contributing to the traffic growth is the recent extension and increase of services by Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa. Other factors included the arrival of new Serbian airline, Jat Airways, which recently started a twice weekly service between Abu Dhabi and Belgrade, and Etihad Airways adding Astana in Kazakhstan to its growing network of destinations.
London remained in the top position as Abu Dhabi’s busiest city destination route, for the month of May, with a total of 37,620 passengers. Doha was the second busiest route, overtaking Bangkok which took third place. Jeddah and Manila were the fourth and fifth busiest destinations respectively.
Traffic to and from India, Abu Dhabi Internationals’ largest single market, increased by 18.3 per cent, while Pakistan reclaimed its position as the airport’s second largest market with 9.9 per cent growth, after having been in third place the previous month.
Australia, in recording a phenomenal 99.4 per cent increase in traffic due to improved connectivity with weekly flights to Sydney and the daily flights to Melbourne launched in April, became the airport’s sixth largest market.
Mohammed Al Bulooki, Vice President of Airline Marketing and Aeronautical Revenue, commented:
“Abu Dhabi International Airport is continuing to outperform the market which we credit to a combination of quality services and facilities offering and the robust infrastructure of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi’s economy and continuingly favourable business climate, relative to today’s global economic climate.
“Our reach is growing in strong steady steps and keeping pace with the tremendous development of Abu Dhabi is making towards its ambitions as a centre for both business and leisure. This has been reflected in the continuing interest being shown in Abu Dhabi from the international business and leisure travelling communities, and qualified in terms by the five new airlines who have established their operations at Abu Dhabi International in 2009 alone.
“Couple this with our existing partner airlines recognising a growing need to extend their Abu Dhabi services and routes; we are clearly continuing to look to the future with heart and are poised, locally, for what we see as the gradual, cyclical, and extended recovery across the industry and other world regions in the near future.”
The average daily passenger traffic for the month of May was 26,235. Mail volumes in the same month continued to increase, up by 66 per cent, led by the increase in Etihad’s mail volume to the USA and Australia.
