DUBAI – The United Arab Emirate’s biggest construction project worth AED120b is about to be resumed, it emerged on Friday.
The project pertains to expansion of Al-Maktoum International airport and is also called Dubai World Central (DWC) and well placed sources say talks among officials connected with the project are underway in the background and potential stakeholders in the scheme have been told informally to be prepared as the $33b scheme is expected to restart.
The airport is located 23 miles southwest of the city centre of Dubai and it debuted as a freight facility only. DWC opened the doors to its 5-7 million capacity passenger terminal passengers on October 27, 2013, while cargo operations were launched in 2010.
Authorities are vowing that by 2050, the plan is for constructing the biggest airport in history, with a capacity to accommodate 255 million passengers annually. The initial phase is expected to be completed by 2030 but the timeline would be confirmed once official details are out; the geographic expanse of the project is massive as a total of 56 square kilometres will be covered by the facility.
At present, Dubai is mainly served by the Dubai International Airport (DXB) and it handled 66 million passengers in 2022 and whopping 86.4 million passengers before Covid in 2019. With the expansion of the planned Al Maktoum Airport, the kingdom would attract more investors.
Besides, the decision makers are also viewing the project as a major construction work which will boost the country’s economy and would compensate the lack of runaway capacity for the Dubai International Airport which has only two runways, the northern and southern strip.
Apparently, the decision to resume the expansion project seems to be fueled by regional rivals. Currently, Dubai is the region’s largest airport and Emirates is the region’s largest airline but players like Saudi Arabia are set to challenge the emirate.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched the masterplan for King Salman International airport in Riyadh, which aims to accommodate up to 120 million passengers by 2030 and 185 million by 2050. Moreover, it has also announced to launch a new airline known as Riyadh Air which will be owned by the Public Investment Fund(PIF) and seeks to make Riyadh a gateway to the world and a global destination for transportation, trade, and tourism besides portraying the kingdom in a favourable light in the aviation world.
