Saudi, UAE enjoy growth in air traffic volume

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have emerged as the leading countries in the Middle East in terms of air traffic volume while Qatar demonstrated the strongest growth. The three countries together represented over 53 per cent or 52.8 million of the total 99 million passengers whose point of departure originated from the Middle East in 2012, according to Amadeus, a leading technology partner to the global travel industry.  Data indicates that Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar enjoyed an average growth rate of 10 per cent in air traffic volume in 2012 as compared to the previous year, thus outpacing, by a large margin, the 2 per cent growth experienced in the Middle East as a whole. The information was released at a press conference during the four-day tourism and travel show, Arabian Travel Market, (ATM 2013) last week in Dubai.