Dubai: Dubai will open the first section of its new international airport in June.
Al Maktoum International Airport will open a cargo terminal on June 27 with an initial capacity of 250,000 tonnes a year, Andrew Walsh, vice-president for cargo and logistics at Dubai World Central, the airport developer, said in an interview Tuesday.
The terminal's capacity will increase to 600,000 tonnes a year, he said.
Dubai is expanding airport capacity to grab a bigger share of global trade and tourism. The emirate is spending $33 billion (Dh121.37 billion) on Al Maktoum International on expectations its existing hub won't be able to cope with surging demand.
Dubai's current airport, Dubai International, received 40.9 million passengers last year and is being expanded to accommodate 75 million by 2012. The emirate expects arrivals to reach 140 million a year by 2025.
Constraints
"We need an area that doesn't have the same constraints as now," Walsh said. He said the first passenger terminal at Al Maktoum will be "substantially complete" in June and will eventually have a capacity of 7 million arrivals a year, though no date has been set for the start of passenger flights.
The new airport, some 40 kilometres from the current one, will eventually have five runways, four passenger terminals able to accommodate 160 million arrivals a year, and 18 cargo terminals with a capacity of 12 million tonnes.
It's adjacent to Jebel Ali port, which will make it faster to load freight that arrives in Dubai by sea onto planes.
Within a decade, Al Maktoum is due to become the new hub for Emirates airline.
