Sharjah airport reports 12% rise in H1 passenger traffic
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Commercial passenger traffic at Sharjah International Airport increased by 11.55% during the first half of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, according to Sharjah Airport Authority.
A total of 5.35 million passengers passed through the airport from January to June 2016, compared to 4.79 million in the same period last year.
Aircraft movements at Sharjah airport increased by 5.74% from 34,270 take-offs and landings during the first six months of 2015 to more than 36,237 during the same period of 2016. The freight handled for the same period of this year recorded 92,000 tons.
Sharjah International Airport’s passenger growth is underpinned by the ongoing expansion of Sharjah-headquartered Air Arabia, the largest low-cost carrier operator in the Middle East and North Africa. The airline has expanded its route network to more than 120 destinations, launching five new international routes since the beginning of 2016, including two new routes from its Sharjah hub.
Sharjah International Airport is also a hub for a number of international passenger and cargo airlines including Air India, Air India Express, Jet Airways (India), Qatar Airways, SpiceJet (India) and Sri Lankan Airlines.
Turkish airline AtlasGlobal launched new daily service between Istanbul Atatürk International Airport and Sharjah International Airport earlier this year, while Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, will add a new daily route from Mangaluru (Mangalore) in southern India to Sharjah from 7 August 2016.
Business aviation services company Gama Aviation has also expanded its fixed base operation (FBO) at Sharjah International Airport, establishing its own executive aviation terminal and investing in a new maintenance hangar.
Sharjah airport added a new super-jumbo capable AED 500 million (US$ 136 million) airport runway in 2014, significantly expanding the airport’s capacity, in line with its goal of handling 25 million passengers by 2025. Total passenger numbers passing through the airport topped 10 million for the first time during 2015, growing at a rate of 5.5% over 2014.
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