HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) and Chairman of Emirates Group, visited Dubai International Airport’s expansion project site recently. The tour covered the Concourse 2 and Terminal 3, where Sheikh Ahmed met with the engineers and consultants sharing with them his vision, and expectations of the much awaited project.
The US $4.1 billion Dubai International Airport Expansion Programme, which involves the construction of Terminal 3, Concourse 2 and 3 and is meant exclusively for Emirates, will enable the facility to handle up to 60 million passengers per year by 2010. Additionally, the project would greatly increase the airport’s capacity to handle the new A380 super-jumbo with 24 dedicated gates, while its cargo handling facilities would also expand manifold.
Expressing satisfaction with the project’s progress vis-à-vis the schedule, Sheikh Ahmed said that the opening of the new facilities will mark the beginning of a new era in global civil aviation, putting Dubai ahead of the world’s biggest and busiest aviation hubs. “The new concourses and terminal will not only expand our capacity to handle more traffic, they will also add a new benchmark for the quality of service and variety of facilities an airport provides to passengers,” he said. In his
Sheikh Ahmed noted that with passenger throughput at the existing terminal/concourse reaching the projected figures in 2006, the timely completion of the airport expansion project will provide fillip to DIA’s growth. He said Terminal 3 and Concourse 2 are expected to be ready and operational in the third quarter of 2007.