Dubai set for slower Eid Al Adha airport traffic

• Expected to fall by a quarter
• Many international airlines absent
• Emirates nearing full network capacity

Passenger traffic through Dubai International Airport (DXB) could fall as much as a quarter during this year’s Eid Al Adha holiday compared with 2025, as the Iran conflict weighs on regional aviation.

DXB handled more than 305,000 passengers on its busiest days during last year’s Eid break. But despite efforts by Dubai Airports to rebuild capacity, the travel period is likely to fall short of normal seasonal levels, an industry analyst said.

“Emirates and flydubai will absorb what they can, but they cannot compensate for the absent frequency of dozens of international carriers,” said Linus Bauer, founder of consultancy BAA & Partners. “The gap is real.”

This year’s Eid Al Adha break runs from May 25-29 for the public sector.

Traffic through the airport has been gradually recovering since the conflict started on February 28.

In April, Dubai Airports said passenger numbers had fallen by almost two-thirds at the height of the disruption, while first-quarter traffic declined by a fifth year on year.

Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, said the operator was “moving decisively to scale up operations”. While Emirates is nearing a return to full network capacity, several major international airlines remain absent, including British Airways, which is scheduled to resume limited services from June 1.

By the end of 2025, DXB was connected to 291 destinations in 110 countries through 108 international airlines. Dubai Airports said the hub currently serves 51 international carriers flying to more than 190 destinations.

“When travel managers reroute to Doha or Abu Dhabi during a crisis, those routing preferences do not simply reset when the airspace reopens,” Bauer said. “The operational disruption is largely over; the commercial re-entry is a longer game.”

Further reading:

• James Hogan: Gulf airlines need up to 2 years to recover from war
• Emirates posts bumper profit despite war disruption
• Local carriers stand to gain in Gulf’s changing aviation market

According to aviation analytics company OAG, 2,783 scheduled flights and more than 818,000 seats are planned for the final week of May. During the same period last year, airlines operated 4,190 flights with more than 1.1 million seats.

Despite the slowdown, Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at StrategicAero Research, said there was clear pent-up demand for travel to and through the Gulf, although uncertainty over a lasting ceasefire clouded the outlook.

“The biggest elephant in the room is whether the ceasefire actually holds over the long term,” Ahmad said.