Abu Dhabi airport passenger traffic up 14.9% in May

Passenger traffic through Abu Dhabi airport grew by 14.9 per cent in May to reach 1.8 million people, mainly fuelled by increased traffic on flights from the US, Italy and India.

The airport saw nearly 15,000 aircraft movements in May, airport authorities said in a statement.

Passengers from Italy grew 166.5 per cent year-on-year during May to reach over 50,000 passengers, buoyed by Alitalia’s new routes to Milan and Venice.

A similar rate of growth was also seen in passenger traffic on US routes with more than 106,000 travellers, up 49 per cent from the same period last year.

Meanwhile passengers from the Indian flights rose 58.6 per cent to reach 305,000 in May, the statement said.

The top five destinations from Abu Dhabi International Airport in May were Mumbai, Manila, London Heathrow, Doha and Bangkok. These destinations also accounted for 16 per cent of all traffic.

Cargo traffic showed healthy growth with a 9.8 per cent increase in overall tonnage to 73,476, compared to 66,944 in May last year.

“May was an excellent month for us, and we continue to see strong growth across all key sectors with both passenger and cargo facilities running smoothly,” said Abu Dhabi Airports COO Ahmad Al Haddabi.

Abu Dhabi, much like its peers Dubai and Doha, is building on its location and network to improve its hub traffic.

Abu Dhabi has also followed a policy of taking up equity stakes in a number of carriers in the key markets that would be instrumental in increasing its hub traffic.

The UAE national carrier Etihad has stakes in India’s Jet Airways, Italy’s Alitalia, airberlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Aer Lingus, Virgin Australia and Swiss-based Darwin Airline.