Dubai: The opening of Dubai’s second airport next month in Dubai World Central (DWC) will provide extra capacity to Expo-visitors in 2020 if the emirate is successful in its bid, Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports said.
The location of Dubai’s site for its Expo 2020 bid is located in DWC near to the new airport.
Griffiths said that the new airport would give Dubai visitors an alternative to Dubai International, which is running low of passenger space.
If Dubai is successful in its bid it is expected that Expo 2020 will attract 25 million visitors to the emirate.
Griffiths said that the new airport — Al Maktoum International Airport — can be used as an alternative when Expo begins attracting visitors.
Despite the Expo 2020 bid, Griffiths said the new airport was vital to Dubai to keep its vital airport capacity.
“We’re going to need 100 million passenger capacity by 2020,” he said.
He said that the new airport would provide the emirates aviation sector with “huge flexibility,” making it “more resilent” as it built on the capacity constraints on Dubai International.
