The UAE's Dubai International Airport (DXB) is one of the Middle East's key transit hubs, and hometown carriers Emirates and flydubai have huge presences there. Indeed, data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows that these two airlines account for 138,823 of the facility's 209,717 scheduled departures this year (66.2%). But which non-UAE carriers have the biggest presence in Dubai?

Indian airlines rule the roost
Sitting at the top of the pile, we have Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo, which is one of just two non-UAE operators to have more than 5,000 departures from Dubai International Airport this year. Its total figure is 5,490 (15 a day), with these flights offering 1,024,952 seats and 1,486,106,770 available seat miles (ASMs). Mumbai (BOM) is comfortably the most popular route, accounting for 1,464 of these flights.
Air India and its low-cost arm, Air India Express, also rank highly, with 3,764 and 4,216 scheduled flights from Dubai International Airport in 2024. Delhi (DEL) is the primary route for Air India's mainline flights from Dubai International (1,673 departures), whereas Mangalore (IXE) comes out on top for its low-cost arm (731).