DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai International Airport saw the coronavirus pandemic push passenger traffic down by an unprecedented 70% in 2020 in comparison with the last yr, its CEO announced Monday, even as the airport held onto its prized title as the world’s busiest for abroad journey.
Whereas the key east-west transit point began to see an uptick in traffic after long-haul carrier Emirates resumed its routes last summer, the airport’s 2020 passenger load of 25.9 million remains to be a trickle compared to 2019. Airlines slashed their schedules and flights declined by more than 50%.
For months as the travel trade collapsed worldwide, Dubai’s huge airport, which saw 86.4 million passengers in 2019, became a ghost-town of shuttered shops. One of its two main terminals shut down.
“It was very, very dramatic,” Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, told The Associated Press. “And of course, we had to respond in a very dramatic way to keep our liquidity.”
The airport slashed its workforce from 8,000 to 3,000, with front-line service and maintenance staff taking the biggest hit.
But recovery gained momentum in December as the city promoted itself as a pandemic-friendly trip spot for tourists fleeing tough restrictions again home. In December alone, passenger volumes surpassed industry expectations at 2.2 million, the airport mentioned. Israelis flocked to the United Arab Emirates after a breakthrough normalization deal and lockdown-weary vacationers poured in to rejoice the vacations and New Yr’s Eve at crowded bars and luxury hotels.
Regardless of indicators of life, and vaccines providing a glimmer of hope, the industry’s outlook stays uncertain. Although overall demand is expected to rise this yr, airlines are showing a warning on international routes. Wide-body jets used for long-haul flights, like Emirates’ iconic fleet of double-decker Airbus A380s, stand idle. Satellite images show dozens of A380s parked at Dubai World Central, the Gulf city’s second airport that went out of use for commercial flights during the pandemic.
Vaccination campaigns have sputtered worldwide and issues have risen over more transmissible virus variants. Changing quarantine requirements across the world have thrown itineraries into disarray, at times stranding travelers abroad.
Meanwhile, the UAE is struggling with a major surge in coronavirus cases, prompting nations to halt flights to Dubai and the city’s government to impose new restrictions on entertainment activities. The UK banned all direct flights to Dubai last month, freezing the world’s busiest international air route and costing the airport lots of thousands of passengers monthly, according to Griffiths. London has ranked as the top destination city for Dubai’s airport the last yr, with 1.15 million customers.
Dubai Worldwide Airport first surpassed London Heathrow as the world’s busiest airport for international traffic in 2014. It has retained the crown ever since, with some 90 airlines flying into the commercial entrepot. Heathrow, hit hard by the pandemic, logged just 22.1 million passengers last yr and mentioned it was overtaken as Europe’s busiest hub by Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
