Dubai eyes rise in air passengers during Q2

Dubai International Airport may see even higher growth in passenger numbers in the second quarter of 2009 compared to the 2.3 percent growth recorded in the first, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said on Sunday.

Griffiths said he was reasonably confident that the airport would end the year with positive growth in passenger numbers.

“Early indications suggest that we might actually have an even better (second) quarter than the first quarter,” he said without specifying a figure.

The airport saw a 2.3 percent growth in passenger numbers in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period the year before.

The airport was now competing for traffic with major transit hubs in Europe and the Far East such as Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in Holland, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in France and Singapore Changi International Airport he said, during a press conference in Dubai to promote the Airport Show in Dubai next week.

Following the progression of aircraft technology there were hardly any two cities in the world which could not be linked in air travel through an airport in the Middle East, Griffiths said.

“What we’re trying to do now is make the ground product as part of that long air journey as comfortable and as efficient as we possibly can so that competition, which is other transit points principally in Europe and the Far East, seem far less attractive,” he said.

He said the decision to delay the opening of the first phase of the $33bn Dubai World Central (DWC), a project under construction in Jebel Ali which will include the world’s biggest airport, was driven by “the sheer logistics of delivering something of 142,000 square km and that sort of throughput.”

He said the delay also allowed for phases of the airport, Al Maktoum International, to be opened in line with passenger growth.

It was announced in February that the deadline for completion of the first phase of the project had been postponed by a year to June 2010.

“It was a lot about speed before and now it’s about speed and quality. You’re talking about creating a legacy for at least 50 years and so a little more time to get it right is well invested,” he said.

The airport will eventually have a capacity to transport 160 million passengers a year, almost double that of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States, the current biggest airport.

He said Dubai Airports was in discussion with Dubai Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) about providing road and rail links between the new airport and Dubai Metro and other parts of the UAE.

He said there were a number of technology contracts it was looking to secure for projects for the first terminal of Al Maktoum International, ranging from departure control systems, management systems for the passenger terminal, freight integration systems and fuel management systems.

Following a change of contractor last month, Griffiths said construction of Concourse 3 at Dubai International Airport would be completed by the end of 2011 and set for opening very early in 2012.

Some of the design of the internal part of the concourse had recently been revised, he said, and changes were being made to the existing infrastructure at the airport to cope with passenger growth and accommodate more A380 aircraft before the new concourse was ready.

UAE contractor ALEC was awarded a $1.17bn contract to build the concourse after a consortium - which included Al Habtoor Leighton, an affiliate of Australia's Leighton Holdings, and South Africa's biggest construction firm Murray & Roberts - withdrew from the project, citing the parties' "inability to conclude an acceptable contract".

Dubai Airport is the sixth largest airport in the world and the only airport in the top ten that still has positive growth figures, according to Griffiths.

READERS' COMMENTS

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM