Abu Dhabi Airport sees decline in cargo volumes in Q1 2017

Apr 25, 2017: Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) has seen decline in cargo volumes in the first three months of the year, according to the traffic report issued by the airport. This major gateway has handled 189,340 tonnes of cargo volume, 1.1 percent decline compared to the same period last year.

The airport has handled 67,668 tonnes of cargo in March this year compared to 67,364 tonnes in the same period last year.This represents an increase of 0.5 percent in freight.

Last year, the airport had witnessed 3.3 percent decline in cargo volumes in 2016 compared to 2015.

The airport has handled in excess of 6.15 million passengers in the first quarter of 2017, representing a 1.8 percent increase in airport traffic compared with the January-March period of 2016, which reached 6.04 million.

The top five destinations from AUH during the first quarter of 2017 were: London, Bangkok, Bombay, Doha, and Jeddah recording collectively 17.3 percent of the passenger traffic for the January-March (Q1) period.

Transit/transfer traffic grew by 2.1 percent in the first quarter and reached 65.8 percent of the total traffic at AUH, whereas the origin & destination (O&D) traffic registered 34.2 percent of the total airport traffic in Q1 and grew by 1.2 percent during this period compared with the first quarter of 2016.

Traffic at Terminal 3 grew by 28.2 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year, with Etihad Airways accumulating 76.9 percent of the total airport traffic.

Total passenger traffic in March 2017 reached 2,032,642, a 0.3 percent increase over March 2016 traffic numbers of 2,025,842.