Dubai, the world’s busiest airport, is continuing to grow, despite a slowdown in bookings to the Middle East region.
Research firm ForwardKeys – which analyses more than 17 million flight booking transactions a day – said there has been “anaemic travel growth” in the Middle East during the first 10 months of the year.
International arrivals grew by just 1% year-on-year in the period January 18-October 18, according to figures from the annual Middle East & Africa Duty Free Association (MEADFA) conference in Beirut.
ForwardKeys said in a statement: “The decidedly uninspiring growth was caused mostly by a slowdown in travel to Saudi Arabia and the ongoing blockade of Qatari airspace by its neighbours.”
Arrivals from the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe grew by 5.6%, 3% and 2.6% respectively but they fell 2.5% from Africa and the Middle East.
Within the Middle East, the UAE is the most important destination by far, attracting nearly half of all air traffic. It was up 2% but the next two most important destinations, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were down 2% and 7% respectively.
ForwardKeys said Dubai airport has continued to increase its share of the transfer market, to the detriment of Abu Dhabi and Qatar, and has continued to attract visitors who stay overnight in the destination too.
Istanbul’s airport is two-thirds the size of Dubai but has seen a 31% surge in visitors staying overnight, as concerns about security have receded, after an attack in 2016.
Forward bookings for the Middle East for the period of November 18 to January 10 are 2.4% behind where they were at the same point last year.
The cause of this slowdown is bookings from Asia Pacific, which are 11.1% behind, while forward bookings from the Americas, Europe and Africa and the Middle East are all ahead.
From mid-April to the end of May 2019, Dubai will close one of its runways for upgrade work, prompting airlines to cut their seat capacity by 22% and increase capacity to Doha and Istanbul.
Olivier Jager, chief executive at ForwardKeys, commented: “The most striking feature of travel to the Middle East is the blue-chip nature of Dubai as a hub airport. It is the largest airport in the region by a long way and, despite the slowdown, it just keeps on growing.”