Dubai International Airport: The world's biggest in 1Q2014, but runway works reduce full year 2014

Dubai International Airport (DXB) managed to chalk up an entire quarter in 1Q2014 as the busiest airport for international passenger traffic, edging out London Heathow International Airport (LHR), as it had threatened to do for some time.

DXB handled 18.36 million international passengers over the first three months of 2014, while LHR handled a total of 16 million passengers. Dubai had growth of 11.4%, while London Heathrow traffic grew just 0.5% for the period.

Dubai Airport's stay at the top was short-lived however. From 01-May-2014, runway works at the airport have cut capacity by better than 20%. At present traffic and growth rates, that could reduce the airport's total annual traffic by as much as 2 million passengers. DXB is however still on track to handle more than 70 million passengers in 2014.

Planned new capacity will allow continued high levels of growth; but southeast England is meanwhile unlikely to achieve even one additional runway within the next 10 years.