Dubai airport passenger traffic falls 2.4% in Q3

Dubai International, the world’s busiest airport for international travellers, reported a 2.4% fall in Q3 passenger traffic on Thursday. The airport, home to airlines Emirates and flydubai, said it handled 23.2m passengers in the three months to Sept. 30. That compares with roughly 22.6m in the same period a year ago. In the first nine months of this year, 64.5m passengers travelled through the airport, 4.5% fewer than the same period last year. Operator Dubai Airports blamed the year-to-date decline on a 45-day closure of a runway between May and April, and the global grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX jet since March. Both Emirates and flydubai have reported lower passenger traffic so far this year. The amount of cargo handled fell 5.9% in Q3 to 636,575 tonnes, while the year-to-date figure dropped 4.1% to 1.9m tonnes.<br/>