Dubai Airports, home to the biggest Arab airline Emirates, said passenger traffic surged 16 percent in June, putting it on track to reach 56.5 million passengers by the end of this year.

The number of passengers passing through the airport was 4.71 million in June compared with 4.06 million a year earlier, according to an emailed statement from the state-owned facility today. Cargo volumes rose to 194,992 tons from 183,365 tons.

“We are on track to meet the annual projected traffic of 56.5 million passengers, which will bring us very close to Dubai International’s operational capacity of 60 million passengers per annum,” chief executive officer Paul Griffiths said in the statement. “The addition of Concourse 3 during the first quarter of 2013 is well timed to boost our capacity to 75 million.”

Dubai Airports owns and manages the operation of Dubai International and Dubai World Central airports.