Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) said Tuesday it welcomed in the first quarter this year 9.5 percent more passengers than that of the the same period last year, mostly driven by passenger demand from and to India.

Between January and March this year, a total of 6,044,025 passengers traveled by AUH, compared with 5,521,110 during the same period last year.

India continued to top the charts in terms of country routes, with the highest passenger traffic figures of 1,082,527, up by 26.9 percent. Italy saw a huge increase in traffic with figures up 62.3 percent on the same period last year, making it the 10th busiest country route in the first quarter of 2016.

Ahmad Al-Haddabi, Chief Operations Officer at the airport, said "Traffic rose over the first three months of 2016 between the United Kingdom, Thailand, the United States and several other countries."

The top five destinations for the first quarter were Bangkok, London Heathrow, Jeddah, Doha and Delhi.

The number of passengers traveling through AUH in last month jumped to over two million passengers, up by 5.6 percent compared to that of March last year.