95,192,160 passengers.
This is the number of travelers who registered at Dubai International Airport (DXB) in 2025, according to data from Airports Council International (ACI). A figure that elevated it to second place in the world for passenger traffic, only behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States.
This last location has been repeating for three years asThe busiest airport in the world and last year it moved 10 million more passengers than Dubai, breaking the barrier of 106 million passengers in a single year.
A figure that, year after year, Dubai wants to reduce to become the airport with the highest passenger traffic in the world. And it has a $35 billion plan to achieve it.
An airport like no one ever conceived
As we said, so far Dubai has remained below 100 million passengers per year. However, the ambition is to break this barrier in just two years. Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, assured Time Out that they aspired to break this ceiling soon and that by 2031 they want to reach 113 million passengers.
These figures would predictably make them the busiest airport in the world but it has a problem: the current Dubai International Airport (DXB) and remodeling it would cost as much money who, directly, prefer to get a new one. At least that is what they maintain from the Emirate.
And in 2010 the Al Maktoum International Airporta space that until now has operated at half throttle and is a ridiculous size compared to its Dubai brother. But in 2024 an expansion was approved to position it as the largest airport in the world with the capacity to handle 260 million passengers in a single year. That is, almost the same passengers as the three busiest airports in the world right now: adding Haneda in Tokyo (third in the world) to those mentioned in Atlanta and Dubai.
According to the voices that have defended the project, the problem is that the current airport is so large that maintenance work drives up costs and, they say, it is cheaper to build a gigantic expansion of the current Al Maktoum International Airport than to renovate the famous Dubai International Airport.
For this, it has been planned to invest 35,000 million euros to make the current Al Maktoum International Airport the center of the Dubai World Central (DWC), the most ambitious mobility hub in the world. This space has been planned as a megacity with residential spaces, hotels, golf courses… and, above all, the largest airport in the world built by man in its history.
Specifically, has been projected that the renovation of the new airport costs $34.85 billion. This figure reflects the ambitions to multiply the size of the DBX by five, building five 4.5 kilometer long landing strips separated by 800 meters. It will have four main concourses and more than 400 doors to operate flights.
The intention is that, operationally, the new airport will be operating at higher performance by the end of the decade to make the complete move from the current DBX to the renovated Al Maktoum International Airport in 2032. That year they hope to manage the traffic of 150 million passengers in one year. That is, about 44 million more passengers than the current Atlanta airport, the busiest in the world, handles.
These passengers will be distributed across three terminals. The intention is that one of them is dedicated solely to the operations of the Emirates Group and another to international flights. The third will concentrate low-cost flights. In addition, a parking lot with 100,000 spaces is planned for workers only.
The intention is to build a high-speed train between both airspaces but to transfer the bulk of the operations to the new construction. Of course, its surroundings and all its services are not expected to be built until 2050. By then, Dubai intends to be able to operate flights with the capacity to move up to 260 million passengers. That is, it should be able to manage half the population of the European Union in a single year.
To consolidate this mega-move, the Dubai airport is already working with new biometric recognition and baggage management systems using artificial intelligence as a test before the airlines arrive at the new space. Obviously, the intention is scale operations to mitigate the risk of collapse.
Consolidation as the largest mobility hub in the world is not only understood with commercial flights. Dubai wants this new space to be the best place in the world for landing flights. Airbus A380the largest passenger plane in the world, but also the best place to carry out your maintenance and repair work. Likewise, it wants to consolidate itself as a key place for the transportation of goods and have restricted space for the landing and takeoff of private flights to which it will be offered all kinds of luxuries with a huge range of auxiliary services such as the aforementioned hotels, shopping centers and leisure spaces.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings