Dubai airport will take years to recover: CEO

Dubai: Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest  for international travel, handled  20% more passenger traffic in the  third quarter of 2021 compared to the same period last year, its chief  executive said Monday, signalling  cautious optimism for the ravaged  aviation industry.

Yet a full recovery remains years  off. More than 86 million people  squeezed through the airport before the coronavirus hit in 2019.  So far this year, it’s welcomed just  20.7 million, up until October. But  CEO Paul Griffiths said the figure still represents a sharp turn in  fortunes for the crucial east-west  transit hub that was clobbered by  the pandemic last year.

We’re still optimistic for recovery being very strong, Griffiths  told The Associated Press amid  the aroma of jet fuel and noise of  plane takeoffs at Dubai Air Show,  the biennial aviation trade expo  that kicked off here on Sunday. It’s  going to be a couple of years, but I  hope I’m wrong.

The airport saw 6.7 million passengers over the third quarter,  with flights surging 17% between  January and September compared  to the same period last year. It’s a  welcome change from the steady  stream of bad news in 2020, when  the airport slashed 34% of its staff  and mothballed a main terminal  as the coronavirus closed borders  around the world.

Growth is returning very strongly, Griffiths said, citing a 40% spike  in bookings last month. The airport is gearing up for flying to rebound for the rest of the year, betting that accelerating vaccinations  and relaxing travel curbs will allow  Europeans to flee wintry weather  for Dubai’s beaches and tourists to  visit the giant world’s fair in the  city that runs until March.

Griffiths said confidence also  grew with the loosening of travel  restrictions from India and Pakistan, which remained the airport’s  largest market this quarter and  routinely send legions of labourers and visitors to the United Arab  Emirates. Airlines are expanding  their flying schedules as the US recently welcomed back vaccinated  Europeans and India reopened for  quarantine-free tourism on Monday.

Still, signs linger that the industry’s worst-ever crisis may not be  over.

Behind Griffiths, tails of scores  of Emirates’ iconic fleet of double-decker Airbus A380s, largely  grounded amid the pandemic,  loomed at Dubai World Central,  the Gulf city’s second airport that  went out of use for commercial  flights last year. -(AP)