March 19- Dubai International Airport has been ranked the 15th busiest airport in the world in 2009 for passenger numbers while it ranked fifth for cargo traffic, said a report released by the Airports Council International. Around 40.9 million passengers used Dubai's airport in 2009, a growth of 9.2 per cent as compared to the previous year. The figures showed that Dubai was one of only four of the world’s 20 busiest airports to add new growth in 2009, alongside Beijing (ranked third), Bangkok (16th) and San Francisco (20th).

Meanwhile, Atlanta in the US was the world’s busiest airport with about 88 million passengers well ahead of London Heathrow (66 million) in second place. Globally, airports saw passenger numbers decline by 2.7 per cent last year while cargo volumes retracted by 8.2 per cent.