Dubai's second airport to handle 200m passengers

Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central (DWC) is to be developed in two phases which will see it able to eventually handle 200 million passengers a year.

HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai has approved plans to spend $32 billion to make the emirate's second hub the world’s largest airport, Dubai Airports has announced.

Phase one of the works will include two satellite buildings which will jointly be able to handle around 120 million passengers annually and accommodate up to 100 A380 superjumbos at any given time.

This first phase will take between six and eight years to complete and the project will cover an area of 56 square kilometres.

Phase two will then see the airport’s capacity increased to 200 million passengers a year, a quarter more than the previously planned ultimate capacity of 160 million.

The announcement comes as passenger traffic continues to grow at Dubai International Airport and is expected to reach almost 100 millionn by the end of 2020.

“Our future lies at DWC. The announcement of this AED120bn development of DWC is both timely and a strong endorsement of Dubai’s aviation industry. With limited options for further growth at Dubai International, we are taking that next step to securing our future by building a brand new airport that will not only create the capacity we will need in the coming decades but also provide state of the art facilities that revolutionise the airport experience on an unprecedented scale,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.

Griffiths added that the aviation sector was a vital part of Dubai’s economic growth and was expected to support more than 322,000 jobs and contribute 28% of the Emirate’s gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of the decade.

Al Maktoum International Airport began accepting passengers in October last year and currently has a capacity of about 5 million people per year. It opened some four years later than originally planned after a financial crisis forced Dubai to revise some of its mega-projects.

Dubai officials have not said how they will fund the new expansion plans, Reuters reported.

Big international carriers, including Emirates, have so far not indicated any plans to move to Al Maktoum, with just a handful of airlines currently operating out of the facility. Authorities have not said what will happen to Dubai International if the big airlines do leave it.