Dubai: Twenty million passengers are forecast to use Dubai’s future mega airport hub, Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC), in 2020 as Dubai International becomes increasingly congested, Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, told Gulf News on Wednesday.
The Dubai government is spending $32 billion (Dh117.5 billion) to expand DWC, located in the emirate’s south near the Abu Dhabi border, as the rapid growth of home carrier Emirates looks set outpace capacity at Dubai International.
Emirates already occupies Concourse A and B at Dubai International and will start using Concourse C later this year when other airlines move to the soon to be opened Concourse D. But with a combined 281 of aircraft currently on order from Airbus and Boeing, the president of the world’s largest airline by international seating capacity, Tim Clark, has in the past lamented that congestion at Dubai International is a major threat to the airline’s growth.
The expansion of DWC will see annual passenger capacity lifted to 220 million over the course of the next decade. But today the airport dwindles in comparison to Dubai International, the world’s busiest airport for international passenger traffic.
In 2014, 845,046 passengers used DWC compared to 70.4 million at Dubai International. Emirates is slated to move to DWC in 2023.
It is the increasing passenger traffic at Dubai International, up 6.1 per cent in 2014, that will soon send airlines, and subsequently passenger traffic, to what is currently the emirate’s second airport.
“The availability of slots at DXB [Dubai International] is starting to be exhausted,” Griffiths said by phone.
DWC gives airlines the choice of operating in a “completely unconstrained environment” compared to Dubai International, where airlines might have long ground times due to slot constraints, he added.
Slot contrasts are not only impacting ground operations with aircraft known to circle over the Dubai International in peak periods as they wait for landing slot to open up, which ultimately adds costs by using extra fuel.
Dubai expects 126.4 million passengers to use the two airports in 2020 with “about 20 [million] of that at DWC” and “about 100 [million] out of DXB,” Griffiths said.
The $32 billion expansion of DWC, announced last September, is still in the design stages with construction yet to start. When the expansion plan was announced last year, Griffiths said the construction would have to get underway almost immediately.
“Unless they break ground by the end of the year we probably won’t achieve the aggressive deadline we’ve set,” he told Gulf News in September.
But now there is no start date for construction, Griffiths said on Wednesday, adding that “the design process we are undertaking is incredibly extensive.”
“We will still be able to meet the target date,” he added, dismissing suggestions there could now be a delay in the delivery of the expanded airport.
Phase One of the expansion of DWC is spread over 56 square kilometres and includes the construction of two satellite buildings and the capability of simultaneously handling 100 Airbus A380s, the world’s largest passenger plane.
Emirates is the world’s largest operator of the A380 with 59 in its current fleet. The airline has ordered 140 of the superjumbos and in recent months has called on Airbus to manufacturer a new, more fuel efficient model, of which Emirates has said it could order more than 100.
A new concourse, which will be connected to Dubai International’s Terminal 1, is likely to open at the end of the second quarter, Griffiths said. Concourse D will lift annual capacity at the airport, which is expecting 79 million passengers this year, to 90 million once it opens.
Airlines operating out of Terminal 1’s Concourse C, which Griffiths said will be refurbished, will shift over to the new facility with Emirates taking over. Concourse D is part of a $7.8 billion investment to lift capacity to 90 million at the airport.
