Dubai Airports plans to replace the world’s busiest airport Dubai International (DXB) with an even bigger one as demand for passengers continues to grow at an exponential pace, its chief executive officer Paul Griffiths said on Wednesday during the ongoing Dubai Airshow 2023.
“Once we've reached about 120 million (passengers a year) — which is what we think our total capacity at DXB (Dubai International) is at the absolute maximum with everything optimised — we are going to need a new airport. That is going to have to happen at some stage during the 2030s," Griffiths told AFP.
This comes as the Dubai Airports projected DXB's annual passenger traffic to reach 86.8 million, surpassing 2019 numbers as record-breaking figures were expected to continue in the final quarter of 2023.
Currently, the DXB can manage 100 million passengers every year — but innovative technologies, refurbishments, and more efficient use of space and resources could expand its capacity to 120 million.
Griffiths revealed that they would be working on the mega-airport's design elements over the next few months.
He said: “It stands to reason that Al Maktoum International has to be even bigger and even better (than Dubai International)… This will be a project that extends way into the 2050s because we take the long-term view here."
“We always knew that when the pandemic struck, there'd be an equal and strong recovery because people under lockdown for two years were denied the ability to travel. And so that's why we've bounced back so quickly,” he told AFP.
He, however, didn’t disclose details on the price tag or capacity target for the new airport. However, he elaborated that the new airport would be designed on a modular basis rather than based around terminals, which will make it easier to expand over time.
“We are not planning an airport that has terminals. We're going to completely change the business model for airports, make them actually far more intimate and get rid of all the legacy processes that we've had to subject our customers to, for far too long,” he added.
