Dubai is building one of the world’s largest and most high-tech airports.
When complete, it’ll be five times larger than Dubai International Airport.
And it’ll be large enough to welcome over 260 million passengers annually.
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The first thing that might surprise you is the airport that’s being revamped and rebuilt isn’t the one most people use.
It’s ‘the other one‘.
Dubai has a few airports, but the two main ones are Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC).
And when people fly to Dubai these days, they usually fly to (or through) DXB.
But that’s going to change soon.
When DWC airport first opened, located about 20 miles southwest of downtown Dubai, authorities knew it would play second fiddle to DXB – but they had a different vision in mind.
Their vision is now taking shape and in the next 5-10 years, Al Maktoum International Airport will gradually become Dubai’s main hub.
It’ll have over 400 aircraft gates and five parallel runways, which is a (visually spectacular) solution that some airports sometimes use to maximize safety and traffic capacity.
According to Paul Griffiths, CEO of DubaiAirports, expanding and rebuilding DWC will cost at least AED128 billion – or around $34.85 billion at today’s rate.
With 87 million passengers, Dubai was the second busiest airport in the world last year, right behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with 104 million, according to reports.
Dubai says the new airport is designed to deal with 260 million passengers annually, which is more than DXB and ATL managed last year…combined.
But when they say that, what they mean is they expect DWC airport to earn the number one spot on this particular list.
Last year, 8.6 billion people boarded a plane at least once and, according to ACI (Airports Council International), that number will go up in the coming years as the world population grows.
It’s a huge pie, and Dubai wants a large piece of it.
