Dubai will move its airport operations from the existing Dubai International Airport (DXB) to a $35 billion mega airport in its southern desert within the next decade, the emirate’s ruler announced on Sunday.
Today, Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) is a secondary airport for the city-state, largely dedicated to cargo and charter flights, with a limited schedule of commercial passenger flights. In 2022, it welcomed just 877,400 travelers, a fraction of the 66 million who passed through DXB 28 miles to the north in the same year.
Photo: Courtesy of Dubai Airports
However, in just ten years, DWC could receive 260 million passengers annually at an airport five times larger than DXB. These passengers will depart and arrive from 400 gates as the jets take off and land on five parallel runways, three more than DXB boasts.
“We are building a new blueprint for future generations, ensuring continuous and stable development for our children and their children,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said in a statement. “Dubai will be the world’s airport, its port, its urban center and its new global center.”
The sheikh approved designs for the new terminal, a white, curved building that evokes the Bedouin tents traditionally used on the Arabian Peninsula, depicted in digital renderings. Construction will soon begin on a project expected to cost AED 128 billion ($35 billion).
Photo: Courtesy of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed
Eventually, Al Maktoum Airport, which during the coronavirus crisis served as a parking lot for Airbus A380s and other Emirates jets, will become the airline’s base.
“The new airport… will set the stage for the next 40 years of anticipated growth in Dubai’s aviation sector,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed, chairman and CEO of Emirates Airline and Group. “He will respond to [Emirates’] ambitious plans in terms of fleet acquisition and passenger growth.”
He suggested the planned airport’s “cutting-edge technologies, passenger facilities with unparalleled level of service and state-of-the-art aviation support facilities.”
Dubai has been planning a successor airport to DXB for nearly 20 years, anticipating that the city-state’s booming tourist industry and Emirates’ global reach would eventually overtake the center. DXB welcomed 87 million visitors last year, a record that brings it closer to its capacity of 100 million.
Surrounded by residential neighborhoods and two highways, the airport cannot be expanded.
Photo: Courtesy of Dubai Airports
“There is really no room to add additional runways or terminals at DXB, so all eyes are on the future potential of another airport development at DWC,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, which owns both airports. BloombergTV in February.
“DXB will continue to serve as a premier hub, serving the needs of more than 100 million guests in the coming years as the second phase of DWC takes shape,” he added in a statement on Sunday.
Griffiths discussed previously how technology and more efficient use of space could increase DXB capacity to 120 million, but that even these improvements will only “cover us for the next 10 to 15 years.”
The sprawling Al Maktoum Airport will also be the hub of a planned city known as Dubai South or Dubai World Central.
“As we build an entire city around the airport in South Dubai, the demand for housing for a million people will follow. It will welcome the world’s leading companies in the logistics and air transport sectors,” wrote Sheikh Mohammed in X.
