A MAJOR £28billion project is set to transform a Dubai airport into "the world's airport" and global centre, says the city's leader.
Construction of a futuristic new passenger terminal at Al Maktoum International Airport will begin immediately.
All operations of Dubai International Airport (DXB) - currently the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic - will be transferred to Al Maktoum "within the next 10 years", Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said on Sunday.
The new 70km2 airport will feature 400 aircraft gates and five parallel runways and will be five times the size of DXB at completion.
It currently has just two runways, the same as DXB.
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Computer-rendered designs for the new airport showed expansive white spaces with high ceilings and plenty of greenery.
Ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the UAE Sheikh Mohammed said on X: "Al Maktoum International Airport will be the largest in the world with a final capacity of up to 260 million passengers."
He added: "We are preparing for a new phase in the growth of the global aviation sector.
"We are preparing for a phase in which Dubai leads the international aviation sector for the next forty years."
New technologies never before used in the aviation sector are also set to feature at Al Maktoum.
Plans have been drawn for an "airport city" in Dubai South which will house "a million people" and "the world’s leading companies in the logistics and air transport sectors".
Sheikh Mohammed said: "We are building a new project for generations, ensuring continuous and stable development for our children so that Dubai will be the world’s airport, port, urban metropolis, and new cultural centre."
The Covid-19 pandemic and the sheikhdom's 2009 economic crisis are said to have delayed progress on the operations of DXB being shifted to Al Maktoum at Dubai World Central.
Dubai and airline Emirates, the largest airline in the Middle East and the fourth largest in the world, strongly and quickly rebounded after the pandemic, mostly due to it reopening to tourism in mid-2020.
Some 86.9 million passengers flew through DXB last year, up from 86.3 million in pre-pandemic 2019 and 89.1 million in 2018, which was then its busiest-ever year.
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Dubai announced its best-ever tourism numbers in February and revealed it had hosted 17.15 million international overnight visitors in 2023, with average hotel occupancy at about 77 per cent.
DXB, being completely surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and two major highways, is constrained to its current size.
Al Maktoum, which opened in 2010, is located about 45 kilometres from DXB and can be expanded into the empty desert around it.
News of the $35billion (£28billion) project comes as Dubai recovers from the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the UAE, which saw planes swimming in pools of water and flights disrupted for days.
