Officials connected with Dubai’s massive new airport project that will one day become the home of Emirates Airline are looking to restart construction which has been on hold for almost the past five years.
Dubai World Central (DWC), or Al Maktoum Airport as it is also called, is located 23 miles southwest of downtown Dubai and first opened in 2010 with just a cargo terminal before expanding to serve a very limited number of airlines and routes in 2013.
The airfield covers a massive 35,000-acre site, and a first-stage expansion project costing $36 billion would allow Emirates Airline to move from its current home at DXB to Dubai World Central.
Initially, Emirates had hoped to move into its brand new hub by 2025, although that timeline has been pushed back until 2030 at the earliest amidst funding issues and an indefinite pause on construction which was initiated just before the pandemic in mid-2019.
Sources cited by MEED Middle East Business Intelligence, however, claim officials are readying to restart the construction project and have ‘informally’ told various stakeholders and contractors to be ready for when they give the green light to restart work.
Once complete, DWC could be capable of serving as many as 250 million passengers a year. Emirates could face a capacity crunch in the near future as passenger numbers continue to recover at the two-runway DXB.
The news that construction work at DWC could be about to restart comes just months after Saudi Arabia unveiled ambitious plans to create a new six-runway mega airport in Riyadh which will be able to handle 185 million passengers per year.
King Salman International Airport will become the home of Riyadh Air, a new carrier that is being bankrolled by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund to kickstart the Kingdom’s tourism industry and go head to head with regional rivals like Emirates.
