There was a significant rise in all modes of air traffic in Kuwait International Airport in 2004 with passengers topping the five million benchmark for the first time in Kuwait air traffic history.
A Civil Aviation Administration release Saturday said there was 19 percent increase in number of passengers from 2003's four million to 2004's over five million. The statement pointed out KAC handled a sizeable bulk of the passengers traffic, around 50 percent.
Incoming passengers' traffic was up 19 percent reaching 2.6 million passengers while departing passengers reached 2.4 million passengers at an increase of 18 percent.
Flights to or from the Gulf took up 33 percent of the traffic while those to or from Asian airports took up another 31 percent. Flights to or from Arab airports meanwhile took up some 22 percent with the remaining 14 percent covering the US and Europe.
Commercial flights to or from Kuwait International Airport in 2004 were up 18 percent at 61 percent of overall traffic while there were another 26,000 non-commercial flights.
The year also saw resumption of operation at the airport by two airliners and debut of two others. Two other airlines had already resumed operation at Kuwait International Airport in 2003. There was increase in traffic by major airlines including Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC), Lufthansa, DHL, and KLM among others.
In terms of shipping and freight, there was a considerable increase as well with incoming shipments up 10 percent to 124 million kilograms.
