How many airports does Dubai have?
Dubai has 2 airports: Dubai International Airport (DXB), Al Maktoum International, often dubbed as Dubai World Central (DWC).
Let’s talk about DXB first.
Dubai International Airport (IATA: DXB) is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates and is the world’s busiest airport by international passenger traffic. It is also the third-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic, the sixth-busiest cargo airport in world, the busiest airport for Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 movements, and the airport with the highest average number of passengers per flight. In 2017, DXB handled 88 million passengers, 2.65 million tonnes of cargo and registered 409,493 aircraft movements.
It has 3 terminals and 4 concourses. Terminal 1 (Concourse D) handles all the third party airlines such as British Airways, Lufthansa, Saudia, etc. Departures and Arrivals are connected via the airport metro. Terminal 2 is for other low cost airlines such as Air India Express, flyDubai, etc. Terminal 3 consists of Concourse A and B which are specifically for Emirates airlines. There is a big underground train network for travelling between Concourse A and B. Concourse C handles the connecting flights of Emirates. Concourse C and B are interconnected and there is bus service between C and A.Terminal 1 and 3 are directly connected to the Dubai Metro.
Now coming to DWC.
Al Maktoum International Airport (IATA: DWC), also known as Dubai World Central, is an international airport in Jebel Ali, 37 kilometres southwest of Dubai, United Arab Emirates that opened on 27 June 2010. It is the main part of Dubai South, a planned residential, commercial and logistics complex. It is a new airport located at Dubai South, which is ideally close to the prime locations of Dubai such as Palm Jumeirah, Dubai Marina, Expo 2020 site, etc.
Soon to become the world’s largest airport, it handles Russian airlines like Aeroflot, Azur Air, etc and third party low cost carriers like Wizz Air, etc. Currently, flyDubai flights have been diverted to DWC as the renovation is going on in one of the DXB runways. There is also free shuttle bus service between DXB and DWC for the passengers. The Dubai World Central will have a total of 100,000 parking slots for automobile vehicles for its employees, Dubai residents, tourists, and other users.
Source – Wikipedia, Himanshu Khanchandani.
