Dubai banks $82 billion on becoming a leading international airport hub

GCC - Dubai World Central

Dubai banks $82 billion on becoming a leading international airport hub

Dubai is building a new airport. Surrounded by sand and baking in the summer heat, workers are putting the final touches to the first runway of the Dubai World Central International Airport ahead of scheduled delivery in October. It is the first of six runways of what will be the world’s fourth-largest airport in terms of area, covering 140 square kilometers upon its completion scheduled for 2017 with a cost of an estimated $10 billion. The sprawling complex will boast the world’s largest passenger capacity — 120 million people per year.

Like everything else in Dubai, the airport will be connected to a hotel and a mall. The “fingers” that link planes to the concourse have been designed to accommodate the new Airbus A380 super jumbos that flagship carrier Emirates Airline is packing its fleet with in the coming years.

And if one World Central is not enough, Dubai’s government is progressing in the expansion of the existing airport, Dubai International. In total, the emirate is sinking $82 billion into the aviation sector to fund Dubai International Airport’s expansion, construction of Dubai World Central International Airport, and increasing Emirates Airline’s fleet.

Should Dubai continue to have the tourism drawing power it has displayed in the past five years, its new airport would be well positioned to surpass the world’s busiest airport, the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in the US city of Atlanta ranked number one worldwide in 2006 in terms of handling the most passengers, with nearly 85 million.

This, however, is still a matter of expectation while Dubai’s existing airport has been inching its way up in the ranking of international air passenger traffic. On month-to-month basis, figures from the Geneva-based industry organization, Airports Council International, show that at the end of March 2007, the Dubai International Airport reached the number 10 spot in terms of international traffic. By the end of May, the airport rose to number nine with 2.6 million passengers.

Over the long haul

However, despite all efforts by US regulators to make it as displeasing as possible an experience, the domestic segment contributes hugely to total air traffic in the US and some other countries. This is the reason why Dubai airport, with its relatively small domestic travel, still does not make the world’s Top 30 list of total passenger traffic per airport, which is currently dominated by US airports.

But in regional and long-haul flights, Dubai’s aspirations to world leadership are not to be scoffed at. People routing through Dubai on its increasingly attractive connections from Middle Eastern and even European cities to Southeast Asia, the Far East, and Africa know that Dubai International is an overwhelming picture of construction. Its new terminal and two concourses will, at a cost of $4.1 billion, bring capacity up to almost 75 million passengers, on top of which the 120-million World Central will create an international air travel hub of unprecedented dimension.

The expansion of Dubai International was expected to be complete in 2006, but delays have pushed the date to 2009 confirmed a spokesman for the Dubai government’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA).

As Dubai joins the exclusive club of cities, like Chicago, with two airports, the DCA spokesman brushed off issues of competition between the transport centers. “DIA and Dubai World Central are not competitors but sister concerns,” he wrote in an e-mailed response to questions from Executive. “They complement each other in catering to Dubai’s growing demand for tourism, travel and logistics.”


Plans call for the two airports to be linked by subway, in a bid to combat the suffocating congestion on Dubai’s streets. The government is also investing in a light rail system that will include stops at both airports.

One might wonder why a city that looks at a population horizon of four million in the next decade would need airports with capacity to serve nearly 195 million people per year (more than the population of Brazil, the world’s fifth most populous country). As the optimistic plans for Dubai’s development into a tourism theme park aim for 40 million visitors in 2015, it is clear that the airports will need to attract a huge portion of the world’s projected growth in long-haul flights.

For now, the emirate can bask in the knowledge that it outdid its own plans in the past. Sheikh Mohammed’s 10-year strategic plan announced in 2000 was realized in half the time. “In 2000, the plan was to increase GDP to $30 billion by 2010. This figure was exceeded in 2005, with GDP reaching $37 billion,” he said, addressing an audience in February as he announced the new plan for 2015.


Is hospitality losing to construction?

One will have to see if the emirate that could exceed its targeted per capita income by 35% five years ahead of schedule will be able to replicate such performance feats in its extreme growth vision for its future role in aviation.


An entirely different question is if the passengers of the next decade will consider the airport with the biggest crowd to be the most desirable hub for their travel. Dubai International, with its construction issues in the past two years, did not quite make it in terms of getting full points for service. In the most recent airport rankings, it landed the best airport in the region honor but did not appear among the global top ten.

Once the expansion of Dubai International is complete (and the local traffic infrastructure has had those bypass operations), the emirate and the companies in charge of running its airports will have a chance to put proof to the belief that Dubai has a golden touch for management of traveling multitudes with the value-added local heart of hospitality.

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