“We are building a new project for future generations, ensuring continuous and stable development for our children and their children in turn,” Sheikh Mohammed said in an online statement on Sunday. “Dubai will be the world’s airport, its port, its urban hub and its new global centre.”
The announcement included computer-rendered images of curving, white terminal reminiscent of the traditional Bedouin tents of the Arabian Peninsula.
The airport will include five parallel runways and 400 aircraft gates, the announcement said. The airport now has just two runways, like Dubai International Airport.
Hong Kong falls out of world’s top 10 busiest ports for the first time
Hong Kong falls out of world’s top 10 busiest ports for the first time
The financial health of the carrier Emirates has served as a barometer for the aviation industry worldwide and the wider economic health of this city state. Dubai and the airline rebounded quickly from the pandemic by pushing forward with tourism even as some countries more slowly came out of their pandemic crouch.
Once fully operational, the airport will “handle a passenger capacity of 260 million annually”, the government said in a statement.
Sheikh Mohammed said it will have “the world’s largest capacity” and be “five times the size of the current Dubai International Airport”, which is one of the world’s busiest air hubs.
The number of passengers flying through DXB surged last year beyond its total for 2019 with 86.9 million passengers. Its 2019 annual traffic was 86.3 million passengers. The airport had 89.1 million passengers in 2018 – its busiest-ever year before the pandemic, while 66 million passengers passed through in 2022.
Earlier in February, Dubai announced its best-ever tourism numbers, saying it hosted 17.15 million international overnight visitors in 2023. Average hotel occupancy stood at around 77 per cent.
Its boom-and-bust real estate market remains on a hot streak, nearing all-time high valuations.
But as those passenger numbers skyrocketed, it again put new pressure on the capacity of DXB, which remains constrained on all sides by residential neighbourhoods and two major highways.
Al Maktoum International Airport, some 45km (28 miles) away from DXB, opened in 2010 with one terminal.
It served as a parking lot for Emirates’ double-decker Airbus A380s and other aircraft during the pandemic and slowly has come back to life with cargo and private flights in the time since. It also hosts the biennial Dubai Air Show and has a vast, empty desert in which to expand.
The announcement by Sheikh Mohammed noted Dubai’s plans to expand further south. Already, its nearby Expo 2020 site has been offering homes for buyers.
“As we build an entire city around the airport in Dubai South, demand for housing for a million people will follow,” Dubai’s ruler said. “It will host the world’s leading companies in the logistics and air transport sectors.”
However, financial pressures have halted the move in the past. Dubai’s 2009 financial crisis, brought on by the Great Recession, forced Abu Dhabi to provide the city state with a US$20 billion bailout.
Meanwhile, the city state is still trying to recover after the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the UAE, which disrupted flights and commerce for days.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
