Dubai The number of flights handled by Dubai International Airport has surged 30 per cent after the runway upgrade was completed recently.
“The number of flights at Dubai International has surged by about 31 per cent with the opening of both runways,” a Dubai Airports spokesperson said.
The runways were shut on May 1 for 80 days to undertake an upgrade as part of Dubai Airports’ $7.8 billion (Dh28.65 billion) 2020 master-plan aimed at expanding the airport’s capacity to over 103 million passengers by 2020.
refurbishment
The refurbishment involved the resurfacing of the entire 4,000-metre northern runway and an upgrade of the lighting and construction of additional taxiways and rapid exits on the southern runway.
A total of 60,000 people worked on the upgrade which required 215,000 tonnes of asphalt on the northern runway, 210,000 tonnes of asphalt and 30,000 cubic metres of concrete on the southern runway.
As many as 3,000 runway lights were installed.
The new runways can not only accommodate more aircraft but also improve operational flexibility during peak traffic hours.
All flights which had moved from Dubai International during this period are back, including flydubai, Malaysian Airlines, Royal Brunei and PAL Express as well as select flights from Qatar Airways and Gulf Air. Four airlines will continue to offer flights from Dubai World Central, including Wizz Air, Gulf Air, Qatar Airways and Jazeera Airways.
Significantly, passenger traffic at Dubai International Airport rose 6.2 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2014, despite a 26 per cent cut in flight capacity between May and July.
Dubai Airports said 34.6 million passengers used the airport during the first half of 2014.
The timely opening of the runways is expected to make up for the slight shortfall during the closure as it was just in time to accommodate the rise in holiday passengers during Eid.
Improved efficiency
Dubai International is the busiest airport in the world, but new measures it has launched have cut security screening time by over 50 per cent.
More than 100 automatic tray return machines have been installed at security check-in areas.
