Middle East carriers post nearly 20% rise in passenger traffic in November – IATA

Middle East carriers post nearly 20% rise in passenger traffic in November – IATA

Airlines in the Middle East and the rest of the world are moving much closer to surpassing the peak year for air travel, with overall passenger traffic reaching 99% of 2019 levels in November, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Wednesday.

Carriers in the Middle East saw an 18.6% increase in passenger traffic during the month compared to a year earlier, while capacity jumped by 19% over the same period.

Regional airlines posted the third-biggest jump in traffic after those in Asia Pacific, which posted a growth of 80.1% and Africa, which recorded a 20.3% rise.

The world’s busiest hub for international traffic, Dubai International Airport (DXB), is expected to exceed pre-pandemic traffic in 2023.

The airport recorded 22.9 million passengers in the third quarter of 2023, the highest quarterly traffic since 2019. The Q3 2023 numbers took the total year-to-date passenger count for the first nine months of the year to 64.5 million, rising by nearly 40% over a year ago and 1% over 2019 figures.

According to IATA on Wednesday, international air travel remains 5.5% below pre-pandemic levels as of the November tally.

“But the gap is rapidly closing. And domestic markets have been above their pre-pandemic levels continuously since April,“ said