UAE contracting giant Al Naboodah Construction Group has been selected to work on the renovation of Dubai International Airport, the company has announced.
Project works, to be implemented between April 15 and May 31, 2019, will see the south runway of DXB – the world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic – shut down for 45 days.
The live airfield project has led airlines to reschedule their flight plans, with Dubai carrier Emirates airline set to temporarily replace its Boeing 777 aircraft with Airbus 380 models for Dubai-Glasgow-Dubai flights, Construction Week reports.
Upgrade works will include the runway’s resurfacing, with developer Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects (DAEP) commissioning Al Naboodah Construction Group for the project, which is expected to raise safety, capacity, and scalability at DXB.
Al Naboodah Construction Group said it has already rolled out “strict planning and pre-closure works” ahead of main activity commencement to “guarantee [that] enhancements are completed successfully and without delay”.
Construction programme and activity schedule
Onsite, Al Naboodah Construction Group will work “around the clock” on what it described as a “high-intensity” project, with its activity schedule including the removal of 6,000 inset runway lights, and milling 407,000 square metres of runway and taxiway surfaces.
At the second stage, Al Naboodah Construction Group will lay 158,000 tonnes (t) of wet-mix and 106,000 tonnes of asphalt, as well as install 6,000 new LED lights, 245 guidance signs, and 12,000 new transformers and components. This will be followed by a third stage, in which components and software will be configured to work with the control tower.
In the final stage, Al Naboodah Construction Group will test, commission, and hand over the runway and precision landing systems back to DAEP.
Al Naboodah Construction Group is part of the larger Al Naboodah Group Enterprises, and will source concrete, wet-mix, and asphalt through its internal batching production facility Arcon.
Plant and equipment will be delivered by its in-house plant supply specialist, National Plant.
The contractor has a strong track record in Dubai’s aviation sector, and in 2010 built Concourse A at DXB’s Terminal 3, the world’s second-largest building by floor space that is dedicated to Emirates.
With DAEP, Al Naboodah Construction Group has completed various runway renovations in the past, the most recent of which was an 80-day turnaround of the North and South Runways in 2014.
For the 80-day programme, Al Naboodah Construction Group deployed a workforce of 4,500 people and 1,225 plant items. Around 410,000 square metres of asphalt was removed from existing runways, which were reconstructed using 400,000 tonnes of wet-mix and 500,000 tonnes of asphalt.
Al Naboodah Construction Group said it laid 1,500 km of primary and secondary cabling for the north and south runways’ airfield lighting and signage components, and also installed 12,500 lights and 500 airfield direction guidance signs for the operation.
South Runway, which formed Phase 1 of the operation, was completed four days ahead of schedule on May 26, 2014, whilst North Runway followed in Phase 2 on July 20, 2014.
Commenting on Al Naboodah Construction Group’s latest contract win, managing director, Senan Al Naboodah, said: “DXB is a central hub for activity and our renovation project will need to be a high-precision, hour-by-hour operation, with standby resources available for every item of major plant and equipment.”
“We are proud to support one of the fastest growing economies in the world and the exemplary foresight of the UAE leadership,” he added. “Expo 2020 Dubai promises to be an exciting time for Dubai and our industry as we welcome global businesses to showcase their value propositions.”
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