Dubai has risen from the 10th busiest airport in the world to the 7th with passenger traffic growth of more than 15% in 2013.
But the top six busiest airports remained the same as last year in the Airports Council International (ACI) preliminary passenger traffic results for 2013.
Atlanta remains the busiest despite a 1.1% drop in passengers, Beijing is in second place with 2.2% growth and London is third with 3.3% growth.
In fourth position is Tokyo-Haneda with 3.2% growth, while Chicago-O’Hare growing by 0.2% and Los Angeles growing by 4.7% are fifth and sixth respectively.
Other airports achieving double digit growth are Istanbul ranked 18th and growing by 13.6% and Malaysia, ranked 20th, growing by 19.1%.
While European and North American airports saw modest growth of 2.9% and 1.1% respectively, both the Middle East and Asia-Pacific saw robust growth with passenger traffic up 9.2% and 7.4% respectively.
"The airport that really makes its mark in 2013 is Dubai (DXB)," said ACI World’s Economics Director Rafael Echevarne.
"Aviation’s nucleus appears to be moving eastward. With double-digit growth rates in passenger traffic for 2013, Dubai is likely to move up several spots again in the 2014 rankings, solidifying its status as the major hub connecting the east and west.
"Other emerging markets such as Turkey, China and South East Asia that have a critical mass of traffic also remain major contributors to the upward surge in air transport demand. This trend will continue into 2014."
