For the 12th year in a row in 2025, Dubai International (DXB) was crowned the world’s busiest international hub by global airports association ACI World. With record traffic of 95.2m, DXB pulled away from number-two ranked, London Heathrow, creating a gap of more than 15m passengers. Dubai Airports, the state-owned operator of DXB, maintains that as conditions stabilise, the transfer segment “is expected to recover quickly” because it “cannot be readily absorbed elsewhere”. Dubai Airports has also been guarded in its external communications and could not take part in this report for that reason. Dubai Airports says only that the outlook for the year “remains underpinned by strong underlying demand”.