Dubai International airport, the world’s fourth busiest hub for international passengers, announced the busiest first half in its history.

28 million passengers passed through its three terminals between January and June this year, its operator Dubai Airports said on Monday.

The airport handled a total of 4.7 million passengers in June, showing a robust growth of 16 per cent from the 4.1 million who passed through the airport in June 2011.

The year-to-date traffic reached 27.9 million up 13.7 per cent from 24.5 million in the first half of 2011. The average monthly passenger traffic recorded in the first six months of the year stood at 4.65 million compared to 4.09 million during the corresponding period in 2011.

Dubai’s own fast growing airlines – Emirates and flydubai – play important role in boosting passenger traffic at Dubai International airport, according to an aviation analyst. “Dubai International is storming ahead in passenger traffic thanks to large part to its big tenants Emirates and flydubai,” Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research, told Khaleej Times.

Dubai has set itself apart as the centre of the world and this growth looks set to continue, Ahmed added.Dubai Airports chief executive officer Paul Griffiths said: “Our record first half had some interesting story lines, highlighted by the launch of 12 new routes, the addition of four new airlines and a surge in traffic on routes to Saudi Arabia, USA, Qatar and Australia.”

In terms of top destinations served by Dubai International during the first six months, the five countries with the greatest passenger volumes were India, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Pakistan and the US.

“We are on track to meet the annual projected traffic of 56.5 million passengers, which will bring us very close to Dubai International’s operational capacity of 60 million passengers per annum,” Griffiths said, adding that the addition of Concourse 3 during the first quarter of 2013 is well timed to boost the airport capacity to 75 million.

Ahmed said: “The airport will handsomely surpass the record set in 2011 and we could easily see the second half of the year being stronger than the first - that may well push traffic beyond 58m passengers which would be truly historic given the global economic pressures.”

The AGCC continued to top the list of regions with the largest increase in total passenger numbers, followed by Western Europe, and the Subcontinent. June was the first time in nearly a year that Middle Eastern routes registered positive growth.

South America has remained the strongest market in terms of percentage passenger growth as a result of new Emirates services to Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, followed by Russia & CIS and Australasia.

“We expanded our transfer areas to ease connections and we launched new high-tech Information Zones and a new downloadable app called myDXB, both of which provide information on flights and gate numbers as well as way-finding to locate customer-facing services,” Griffiths said.

Aircraft movements in June totalled 27,428 up 5.1 per cent from 26,101 registered during the same period in 2011. Year-to-date aircraft movements totalled 170,249, an increase of 6.8 per cent compared to 159,372 recorded during the first half of 2011.

Air cargo volume, during the first half of 2012, increased by 2.2 per cent to 1.09 million tonnes. In June, Dubai International handled a total of 194,992 tonnes of freight compared to 183,365 tonnes in June 2011, showing an increase of 6.3 per cent.