OREANDA-NEWS. Abu Dhabi International Airport released figures that show its strong global appeal as a travel hub, with an impressive 18% growth in passenger traffic over the first three quarters of the year, with a total of 17,473,063 passengers. The top ten busiest routes for the first nine months of 2015 included the U.K., U.S.A., Saudi Arabia, Australia, Qatar, Thailand and Germany. Total aircraft traffic was also up 14.3% in the first three quarters of the year, in which AUH successfully facilitated 129,703 aircraft movements.

Eng. Ahmad Al Haddabi, Chief Operations Officer at Abu Dhabi Airports said: "2015 has been a big growth year for us. September was another very busy month and the third consecutive month in which we welcomed over two million passengers. Increased global connectivity continues to be an important contributor to our overall success, and we are seeing a dramatic boost in demand across the vast majority of destinations served from AUH."

Year-to-date growth on specific routes included a 44% increase in passengers travelling between Abu Dhabi and the U.S.A, a 27.3% surge in traffic to and from Australia, and 24.8% and 17.2% rise on flights between the U.K. and Germany respectively.

The airport moved 621,191 metric tons of cargo during the first nine months of the year, with overall cargo traffic up 7.2%.