30 May 2024
The new airport will be five times bigger than the existing airport and have an annual handling capacity of 260 million passengers.
Al Maktoum International Airport will be the world’s largest airport. Designs were approved, and construction began in April this year. The airport will be built over 70 square kilometres for around AED128 billion, or ₹2,900 crore.
It will boast five parallel runways, five passenger terminal buildings with 400 aircraft gates, and some new innovative aviation technologies will be employed for the first time. It will handle approximately 12 million tons of cargo annually. In the next ten years, all operations of the current airport will be transferred to the new one.
A new city will be built around the airport in Dubai South, housing a million people and hosting the world’s leading aviation and logistics enterprises. Phase I of the project will handle 150 million passengers globally and will be completed in ten years. With this, its government aims to catapult Dubai to the world’s top three economic cities.