Indian flyers make Dubai world’s busiest international airport

NEW DELHI: With more than a little help from Indian travellers, Dubai has emerged the busiest international airport in the world. Dubai overtook London Heathrow last year, thanks to a growth of 9.3 lakh flyers to and from the India subcontinent — which was second only to the increase of 11.9 lakh flyers the Emirate saw in passengers to and from Europe.

Dubai International (DXB) handled over 7 crore international flyers last year, while Heathrow — which has been pipped for the first time ever — saw 6.8 crore international travellers. India played an important role in Dubai emerging as the busiest international airport. Dubai's Emirates operates the maximum flights among all foreign airlines that operate to India. It has 185 weekly flights to 10 Indian cities, with the number of weekly flights set to rise to 186 from March 29.

A Dubai Airports release issued yesterday said: "For the full year 2014, the top market for growth in passenger volumes was western Europe (+1,192,831 passengers), closely followed by the Indian Subcontinent (+936,449 passengers)..."