During the first eight months of 2018, Heydar Aliyev International Airport served over 3.08 million passengers, the press service of Heydar Aliyev International Airport said in a statement Sept. 11.

Axar.az reports citing Trend.

This indicator exceeds the same indicator of the previous year by 12 percent.

National air carrier Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) carried 1.335 million passengers, while national low-cost airline Buta Airways – 305,000 passengers.

This is while 2.65 million passengers (86 percent of passenger traffic) accounted for international flights since the beginning of the year. Thirty-four percent of a total number of international passengers accounted for AZAL, while 11 percent - Buta Airways.

In addition to AZAL and Buta Airways carrying out international passenger flights in August, the top ten airlines also included FlyDubai, Turkish Airlines, Air Arabia, Aeroflot, UIA (International Airlines of Ukraine), Qatar Airways, Utair, Iraqi Airways, Lufthansa and S7 Airlines. In total, they served 191,000 passengers.

Presently, Heydar Aliyev International Airport serves 30 airlines on over 40 destinations. Top ten most popular international destinations include Istanbul, Moscow, Dubai, Antalya, Sharjah, Kiev, Baghdad, Tehran, Bodrum and Tel Aviv. 328,000 passengers traveled to these destinations during this period.

The new airport terminal of Heydar Aliyev Airport (Terminal 1) was put into operation in April 2014. Its total area is 65,000 square meters.

Heydar Aliyev International Airport was awarded the category of "4 stars" by the Skytrax, which is influential British consulting company specializing in the study of the quality of services provided by various airlines and airports worldwide.

In March 2018, Baku Heydar Aliyev Airport was named the best airport among airports of Russia and CIS countries for the level of the provided services, being awarded the prestigious Skytrax World Airport Awards for the second year in a row.