Cargo volume at Dubai International (DXB) reached 192,902 tonnes in August, a 4.3 percent year-over-year rebound, reflecting the return of about 600 passenger flights per week that had been diverted temporarily during a runway upgrade that concluded on July 20. The 80-day runway project reduced capacity at DXB by 26 percent between May and July, but passenger volume has surged since then to a record 6.6 million in August.
The performance is even more impressive considering that freighter traffic from carriers such as Emirates SkyCargo, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, and Cargolux had shifted all of their scheduled freighter operations from DXB to the new cargo facility at Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC) earlier this year.
The cargo growth, however, was not enough to make up for all the reduced belly-hold cargo flights during the spring – year-to-date cargo volume at DXB reached 1.56 million tonnes during the first eight months of the year, down 2.2 percent year over year.