Dubai wants to build the biggest airport in the world. Here’s how that’s going

A little more than 10 years ago, in October 2013, a Wizz Air A320 arriving from Budapest made headlines by becoming the first commercial passenger flight ever to touch down at Al Maktoum International Airport, also known as Dubai World Central (DWC). This brand new “greenfield” airport some 20 miles southwest of downtown Dubai was designed to become, in a not-so-distant future, the world’s largest and busiest. The vision was – and still is – for a futuristic mega-hub, ensuring that the emirate’s role as a major node of the global economy doesn’t run into capacity problems anytime soon. Dubai Airports, the airport authority that manages both Dubai International (DXB) and the new airport, promises that when Al Maktoum International is finished, it‘ll be able to handle more than 160m passengers per year as well as 12m tonnes of freight. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly 63m more travelers than the world’s current busiest airport, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International, handled in 2022 and nearly 100m more than Dubai International. DXB, let’s not forget, is already the world’s busiest airport outside of the US and Dubai’s main international gateway. However, a decade and a pandemic after that initial passenger flight, and a full 13 years since it first opened for cargo operations, Dubai’s newest airport is still very much a work in progress. DWC has found a role as a center for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul – “MRO” in industry parlance. It also hosts a number of air cargo operators (including Emirates Cargo, the freight subsidiary of the UAE flag carrier) and handles executive jets and some charter flights. Scheduled passenger services, however, are limited to those provided by a handful of low-cost carriers that operate services mostly to Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Story goes into details.<br/>