The Al Maktoum International Airport is designed with 400 aircraft gates and five runways.
X/Shiekh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Over the next decade, Dubai plans to build a $35 billion airport with 400 gates and five runways.
The emirate says the new airport will accommodate 260 million passengers – making it by far the largest international hub in the world.
The project is considered the heart of the ambitious Dubai South project, a planned city of over a million people in the emirate.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
Dubai plans to convert one of its airports into the largest airport in the world. The emirate wants to replace the current international hub, Dubai International Airport, in the future. Once the work is completed, the modernized Al Maktoum International Airport will be five times larger than its dimensions.
As Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced, the expanded airport will have a capacity of 260 million passengers, making it the largest in the world. “We are building a new project for future generations that will ensure continuous and stable development for our children and their children,” wrote Sheikh Mohammed in a post on X. “Dubai will be the world’s airport, its gateway, its urban center and its new global center.”
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Emirate plans 400 boarding gates
For comparison, the world‘s busiest airport in 2023, Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, recorded 104.6 million passengers this year. Most international flights in the emirate currently operate through Dubai International Airport. In 2023, around 87 million passengers traveled here.
However, with the new plans, all flight operations will be relocated to Al-Maktoum Airport in the long term. According to Sheikh Mohammed, it will include five parallel runways and 400 gates. He estimated the construction costs for the next ten years at 128 billion UAE dirhams, the equivalent of 35 billion dollars or 32.4 billion euros. The sheikh added that the emirate will build “an entire city around the airport,” which is expected to be home to a million people.
Dubai’s new airport forms the heart of a planned economic region
Al Maktoum International Airport, also known as Dubai World Central, was Opened in 2010 with one terminal. Like Dubai International Airport, it has two runways, but airlines use them significantly less.
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The airport is intended to form the heart of Dubai South, a planned economic region. Covering an area of 142.5 square kilometers, it will accommodate a million residents and offer 500,000 jobs.
The sheikh’s airport announcement comes as air traffic in Dubai has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Stayed here in 2023 17.15 million international guests.
Read the original article Business Insider.