Efficiency top priority for Dubai Airports

01 June 2015

No more expansions planned for the three terminals of Dubai International Airport

  • A shift from expansion to driving efficiency at Dubai International Airport
  • Move is part of the emirate’s planning for Expo 2020
  • Capacity for the new Al-Maktoum airport will be 240 million people by 2050

Dubai International Airport will focus on becoming more efficient, rather than launching new expansion plans.

Speaking at the Routes Middle East and Africa Summit in Manama on 1 June, Khalil Lamrabet, director of aviation business development at Dubai Airports, said that space restrictions and congestion issues has meant that the priority is to improve efficiency across the three terminals.

Operator Dubai Airports wants to improve the efficiency of people flowing through the airport and speed up baggage handling across the international airport’s three terminals. The aim is to create capacity for 100 million passengers in 2020, when the World Expo opens in Dubai.

That year, 126 million people are forecast to pass through both Dubai International and the new Al-Maktoum International airports.

Al-Maktoum International Airport, located to the south of the emirate near Jebel Ali, is designed to handle 120 million passengers in its first phase and up to 240 million when the second phase is completed sometime before 2050.

Dubai Airports forecasts the aviation sector’s contribution to Dubai’s GDP will quadruple to $88.1bn by 2030. That would be equivalent to 44.7 per cent of GDP on current figures. By 2030, the industry is also expected to employ about 1.2 million people.

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