Future world’s largest airport opens in Dubai

Dubai is battling on in its bid to become the world’s most important city, and we can tell you, its one heck of an exciting place to be at the moment. We’re particularly proud of serving clients in Dubai, like the good people at Dubai Bank, and of being part of the economic powerhouse that the emirate is becoming.

This weekend brought more exciting developments for Dubai. On Sunday, Dubai Airports opened what will become the world’s biggest airport; the Dubai World Central Al Maktoum International. At present, the airport is only running cargo operators, but there are big plans for Dubai’s second airport.

Sunday’s flights kicked off with three flights by Rus Aviation, Skyline and Aerospace Consortium, and there are already 13 other freight operators signed up for more flights. In phase one of the development of the new airport there are plans for a runway big enough to handle Airbus A380 super jumbos, 64 remote stands, one cargo terminal with the capacity for 250,000 tonnes of cargo annually, and a passenger terminal building capable of serving 5 million passengers per year.

That’s just for starters. Once the airport is finished, it will have five runways, four terminal buildings, and the capacity for 12 million tonnes of freight and 160 million passengers a year. The project will take $10.9 billion and 10 to 15 years of hard work, and passenger flights are expected to start at the end of March 2011.

With aviation accounting for a quarter of Dubai’s GDP, this is a huge leap in the right direction for the emirate. Additionally, it represents another move towards building Dubai up to become a global logistics hub. Here at Inatech, we’ll be watching as Dubai takes up more and more of the world stage as a major player.