Dubai International Airport on Monday said it has retained its position as the world's busiest airport for the fifth consecutive year in a row in 2018 with Indian travellers emerging as the largest source of traffic for the airport which registered a record footfall of over 89 million.

Annual traffic at the major transit hub rose slightly to 89.15 million passengers, up just over 1.0 per cent on the number who used the airport in 2017, it said in a statement. Although the figure was a new record high, it missed on the 90.3 million passengers the Dubai airport had projected for 2018.

"2018 was yet another remarkable year for Dubai Airports," said CEO Paul Griffiths.

According to the latest figures, a total of 89,149,387 travellers used the airport in 2018. India remained the biggest source of traffic for the airport, accounting for more than 12.2 million travellers. Most of them coming from the Indian cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Cochin.

Saudis came second over 6.4 million passengers, overtaking travellers from the United Kingdom. About 6.3 million British nationals used the airport. Apart from these countries, 3.5 million flyers from China, 3.2 million from the United States and about 1.5 million from Russia arrived at Dubai airport. The airport exceeded the 8 million passenger mark twice last year, particularly in July, when passenger numbers reached 8.2 million, and in August, which logged 8.4 million flyers, making it the busiest month in the history of the airport since it started operations in 1960.

It overtook the crown of the world's busiest hub for international travel from London's Heathrow in 2014. The airport also handled over 408,000 flights last year, about 0.3 per cent down from the previous year. The Dubai International Airport (DXB) was opened for civil aviation in July 1937.