Dubai airport tops global ranking again with 95.2 million passengers
DXB has been the world’s busiest airport since 2014 and eyes nearly 100 million passengers in 2026.
Dubai International Airport (DXB) is once again the world’s busiest, seeing some 95.2 million travelers pass through its terminals in 2025 and setting a new global record. DXB is eyeing nearly 100 million passengers next year.
What happened: The Middle Eastern airport announced the news in a statement on Wednesday, saying that the 95.2 million passengers in 2025 were 3.1% more than in 2024. DXB has been the world's busiest airport since 2014.
DXB logged its busiest day, month, quarter and full year on record last year, operating close to physical limits. December was the busiest month in the airport’s history, with 8.7 million passengers, up 6.1% year on year. The October to December quarter was the busiest ever, with 25.1 million passengers, a rise of 5.9% year on year.
Total flight movements reached 118,000 in the fourth quarter of last year, up 5%, bringing the annual total to 454,800, a rise of 3.3% year on year.
The average number of passengers per movement was 214, with the airport saying in the statement that this reflected "sustained deployment of larger aircraft and high load efficiency." The annual load factor stood at 77.6%, 0.5 percentage points less than in 2024. Load factors indicate how full aircraft are, with a load factor of 100 representing full aircraft all the time.
Why it matters: For years, Dubai has positioned itself as a global hub for tourism and used its location to connect travelers to destinations across Asia, Africa and Europe. Over the last decade, the airport has surpassed other major global hubs such as London Heathrow, Toronto Pearson, Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Singapore Changi and Seoul Incheon in annual passenger numbers.
DXB shows no sign of slowing its momentum and plans to welcome around 99.5 million passengers in 2026, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said in the statement.
Know more: Last year, India held its position as DXB’s largest market with 11.9 million guests, followed by Saudi Arabia at 7.5 million, the United Kingdom at 6.3 million, Pakistan at 4.3 million, and the United States at 3.3 million.
Several countries recorded particularly strong growth to and from DXB during the year. Traffic from China increased 16.6% to 2.5 million, Russia rose 6% to 2.8 million, Turkey grew 6.7% to 2.2 million, Egypt expanded 14.3% to 1.8 million, and Italy soared 12.5% to 1.6 million.
London remained DXB’s busiest city destination with 3.9 million passengers, followed by Riyadh at 3 million, Mumbai and Jeddah at 2.4 million each, and New Delhi at 2.2 million.
By the end of 2025, DXB connected 291 destinations in 110 countries through 108 airlines.
