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Dubai: Dubai Airports withstood 111 threat alerts and 17 missile strikes during the regional conflict this year, with most causing minimal damage and all those injured now fully recovered, its CEO Paul Griffiths said during an international media briefing hosted by Dubai Media Office on Thursday.
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The aviation veteran said the figures reflected the resilience of Dubai’s aviation sector through an extraordinary period of disruption, as the airport moved rapidly from crisis response back towards normal operations.
“I didn’t go to airport school. But if I had done, I’m absolutely sure there’d be no class on, ‘this is what you do with ballistic missile attacks’,” Griffiths said. “So we have to learn in a matter of a few hours what to do in the case of an onslaught.”
He said Dubai Airports recorded 111 alerts during the period of hostilities and 17 strikes, most of which caused “very, very fortunately” minimal damage.
“The most satisfying statistics, there were 0 deaths and very, very limited casualties, and I’m very pleased to say that all of those people have now fully recovered,” he said.
Traffic rebounds
The recovery in passenger traffic has been rapid.
Griffiths said Dubai Airports handled 31.5 million guests in the first half of the year, despite the disruption, with monthly traffic recovering sharply after falling to 2.5 million in March.
Traffic reached 5 million in June and 6.3 million in July, representing a 26 per cent increase in a single month.
“We believe we have the trampoline bounce,” Griffiths said, describing the airport’s ability to recover from shocks and rebound.
Dubai Airports had previously expected to approach 100 million passengers this year, but Griffiths said the latest outlook was more conservative.
“We anticipated originally, we’d be close to the 100 million by the end of this year. I think conservatively, possibly by the end of next year, we may reach the 100 million,” he said.
The airport closed 2025 with 95.2 million guests.
Airlines return
Griffiths said Dubai’s international connectivity was also rebuilding, with the airport’s capacity now back to 84 per cent of pre-crisis levels and customer numbers at 78 per cent.
“The only missing airlines we had are some of the European carriers, and we’ve now got Air France back,” he said. Though Air France had resumed flights to Dubai, it has since paused operations to DXB until September 10 due to renewed escalation in the US-Iran war.
He said carriers currently missing from the schedule had announced plans to return on October 25, coinciding with the start of the winter season.
“So I’m pretty confident that we’ll have pretty much everyone back that’s missing at the moment by the winter season,” Griffiths said.
He said advanced winter bookings, particularly for November and December, were encouraging.
“I’m absolutely convinced by the end of the year, it would be pretty much back,” he said.
Griffiths said Dubai was now connected to 104 countries and 260 cities, and he expected the airport’s traffic to continue recovering.
Summer shift
The temporary withdrawal of some European carriers during the summer was, Griffiths said, partly a commercial decision rather than a long-term retreat from Dubai.
Airlines operating in the northern hemisphere faced a choice when the summer season began in March: continue operating to Dubai amid uncertainty during a traditionally softer period, or redeploy aircraft to stronger European leisure markets.
“They made that decision and I respect and understand it,” Griffiths said.
However, he argued that airlines could not afford to remain absent from Dubai’s aviation hub.
“They can’t afford to be out of the Dubai market, they can’t be absent from the mega hub that we’ve built,” he said.
Griffiths said the Gulf handles around 100 million connecting passengers, with Dubai accounting for about 45 per cent of that market.
“So we’re a very, very vital part of not just the local aviation scene, but the global aviation scene,” he said.
Traffic mix steady
Despite the disruption, Griffiths said the mix between connecting passengers and travellers flying to or from Dubai directly had remained remarkably stable.
“The transfer and direct mix of traffic is pretty much the same, 50-45 and 55, depending on the month and the direction,” he said.
He added that the airport continued to see substantial business travel, while India, Saudi Arabia and the UK remained among Dubai’s top markets.
“Generally the rest of the world is pretty robust, and we’re seeing quite a normal distribution of traffic which doesn’t differ from where we were before,” Griffiths said.
That resilience is important for Dubai because aviation is closely linked to the wider economy, he said.
“The UAE correctly recognises the absolute direct link between the thriving economy, the connectivity of the city and having a healthy, vibrant and rapidly growing aviation sector,” Griffiths said.
