Dubai World Central, DWC, is gaining ground in the region as a popular airport for passengers, with traffic surging 161 percent in the third quarter, according to a report issued by Dubai Airports today.

DWC welcomed 191,950 passengers during Q3 compared to 73,466 passengers in Q3 2015. The year to date traffic totalled 602,228 passengers, up 112 percent compared to the first nine months of 2015.

Passenger traffic at DWC is mainly driven by flydubai, one of Dubai’s two flagship carriers, which, in addition to its operations at Dubai International’s Terminal 2, operates 35 weekly flights to five destinations from DWC. Qatar Airways and Wizz Air are the two other major carriers carrying out scheduled passenger operations from DWC.

Carriers operate an average of 140 flights weekly to 10 international destinations from DWC, which is also home to 32 scheduled cargo operators that connect the airport to as many as 107 destinations around the world.

During the third quarter, DWC handled 215,556 tonnes of freight compared to 219,131 tonnes handled during the corresponding period in 2015, down 1.6 percent. The year to date cargo as at the end of September, was 645,698 tonnes, a reduction of 2.5 percent compared to 662,143 tonnes recorded during the first nine months of 2015.

Aircraft movements in the third quarter totalled 8,679 compared to 9,137 during the same period last year, a decrease of 5 percent. Year to date aircraft movements in September reached 28,877, down 3.8 percent from the 30,003 recorded in the first nine months of 2015.

Commenting on the results, Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, said, "We are very happy with the way passenger traffic has been growing at DWC, but this is only the beginning. By the end of next year, the airport will have seen tremendous growth as it becomes the new home for flydubai. The project to expand the annual capacity of the passenger terminal at DWC from 5 million to 26 million passengers is underway and on track to be completed by the third quarter of 2017."