Abu Dhabi airport passengers up 26%

PASSENGER GROWTH: Abu Dhabi airport passenger numbers for July jumped 26.7 percent from the same period in 2007. (Getty Images)

Abu Dhabi airport passenger numbers for July jumped 26.7 percent from the same period in 2007, Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) said on Saturday.

ADAC, the owner-operator of Abu Dhabi International Airport, said in a statement the airport handled a total of 5,092,307 arrival, departure and transit passengers from January to July 2008.

Traffic figures for July also indicated that an average of 27,004 passengers per day passed through the airport.

Rudy Vercelli, CEO of ADAC, said if the airport’s current growth rates continued, over nine million passengers would pass through Abu Dhabi International Airport by the end of 2008.

Passenger figures have been bolstered by increased frequencies and new destinations over the last 12 months by Etihad Airways and the increasing number of new airlines operating out of the airport, Vercelli said.

“Abu Dhabi International Airport’s Terminal 3 is one development that will cater to the very real and growing demand for travel through and from the UAE capital. The additional five million passenger capacity terminal is currently undergoing a phased introduction with some of the key operations set to be up and running by the end of the year,” he said.

Terminal 3 will bring the total passenger capacity at the airport to over 12 million and will act as an intermediate facility until the main centre-piece of the new airport – the ‘Midfield Terminal’ – comes online in about four years time. The Midfield Terminal’s operational capacity when opening will be 20 million passengers per year.

Meanwhile, the five most popular city destinations travelled to from Abu Dhabi in July were Doha, Bangkok, Cairo, London, and Manama, ADAC said.

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