The airline said the new milestone would be met in the current 2017/18 financial year after 30 years of operations in the UK.

The new figure would be an increase on the 4.92 million carried this year and way ahead of the 87,000 passengers the airline carried in its first year of operations when it had only six aircraft in its fleet.

Since then the airline has grown massively with the most popular destinations for UK travellers now being Dubai, Bangkok, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Singapore.

Much of the growth has been driven by Emirates’ UK regional programme with 18 million passengers travelling on flights between Dubai and Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle or Glasgow since 2004.

Laurie Berryman, VP UK, Emirates, said: “The last 30 years have been an incredible journey for us at Emirates.

“We’ve grown our UK presence to serve more passengers with the latest, most comfortable wide-body aircraft, flying more people and more British exports to more places around the world.

“We’re looking forward to the next 30 years, helping passengers explore more of the world, and conversely welcoming inbound tourism to the beautiful UK.”