Full-year passenger traffic data in airports across the GCC member states, except Saudi Arabia, shows slower growth in 2016 compared to the previous year.

Abu Dhabi International airport registered the highest growth decline, with passenger traffic growth falling from 23.3 per cent in 2015 to 5.1 per cent in 2016. The airport processed 24.48 million passengers in 2016, compared to 23.29 million in 2015.

Dubai International, the region’s largest and the world’s busiest airport in terms of international passengers, grew by 7.2 per cent year-on-year, compared to 11.2 per cent in 2015.

“I am not so concerned about the slowdown in passenger traffic at Dubai International,” an aviation consultant tells MEED, explaining that adding 10 million passengers a year to an airport’s capacity poses a key challenge to an airport’s operations. “A slowdown in a small airport is more worrying.”

Preliminary data arising from Kuwait also indicates that passenger traffic at the Kuwait International airport contracted by about 4 per cent in 2016.

Only Muscat International and Sharjah International, in addition to Dubai’s Al-Maktoum International airport, registered double-digit growths in passenger traffic in 2016.