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Dubai is building the world’s largest airport in the middle of the desert, a $35 billion structure with 400 gates and a capacity for 260 million passengers per year, and the plan is so radical that it includes retiring the current airport by 2035, which is currently the busiest in the world for international flights, to move everything to a new location.
The name of the project is Al Maktoum International, part of the Dubai World Central complex, southwest of the city. The numbers are hard to process: 400 gates, five parallel runways, capacity for 260 million passengers per year, and a cost of around $35 billion. When ready, it will be about five times larger than the already enormous Dubai International Airport we know today.
Five times the current one, the largest ever planned
To get an idea of the scale, the largest airports in the world today handle between 80 and 110 million passengers per year. Al Maktoum is aiming for more than double that in a single complex. It is not an expansion; it is an airport city built practically from scratch in the sand, designed to be the largest boarding and disembarking point humanity has ever constructed.
It contrasts with the rest of the world. Large new airports usually take decades between announcement and inauguration, bogged down in permits, expropriations, and budget disputes. Dubai compresses this timeline with quick political decisions and deep pockets, turning into a project what, in many countries, would still be a shelved feasibility study.
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Dubai will close the world’s busiest airport
The boldest part of the plan is not even building the new one, but abandoning the old one. The current Dubai International Airport, the world leader in international passenger traffic, is expected to be deactivated around 2035, with all operations moving to Al Maktoum. Imagine deliberately closing the busiest airport on the planet because it simply has no more room to grow, squeezed within the urban fabric. It’s the bet that it’s better to start big than to patch up what has already exceeded capacity.
Why a small emirate is betting $35 billion on this
The numbers of the current airport help to understand the bet. Dubai International moves about 90 million passengers per year and has led the world’s international traffic since the mid-last decade. It’s home to Emirates, the largest international airline on the planet, with a huge fleet of giant A380s. Add to that its position on the map, which places much of humanity within an eight-hour flight, and it’s clear why the city treats the airport as survival infrastructure, not luxury.
Dubai doesn’t have abundant oil like its neighbors, and decades ago decided its future would be as the world’s hub. The location helps: much of Asia, Europe, and Africa can be reached in a few hours of flight. On top of this, the city has built an economy of tourism, trade, and logistics that directly depends on moving people and cargo through the sky. The airport, in this model, is not an expense; it’s the engine. It’s the same logic of prestige and scale seen in other billion-dollar megaprojects in the Gulf, like the Sphere arena that Abu Dhabi is building.
I confess it’s hard not to admire the boldness, even while being skeptical of the gigantism. While many countries spend decades fighting to renovate a terminal, Dubai decides to build the largest airport in history and still discard what it already had. It’s the bet of those who don’t want to come in second place.
An airport city in numbers
Just the first phase is already daunting. The west terminal is expected to have about 800,000 square meters spread over seven levels, with a baggage system capable of processing tens of thousands of bags per hour and an internal train with 14 stations to transport passengers from one side of the complex to the other, because walking would be unfeasible. The first major stages are expected to be completed at the beginning of the next decade, and the entire complex will be delivered in parts over the following years.
And the airport doesn’t come alone. Around it, Dubai plans an entire city, with residential neighborhoods, logistics zones, and commercial areas designed to grow along with the runways, potentially housing more than a million people. It’s the concept of an aerotropolis taken to the extreme: instead of an airport on the city’s edge, a city built around the airport, with everything orbiting the planes.
It’s the kind of project that changes the map of global air transport and pushes the next frontier of aviation, at a time when even aircraft fuel is being reinvented to pollute less. I imagine the scene ten years from now: the old airport silent and empty, and all that crowd of travelers from around the world flowing through a complex that today is still, for the most part, desert.
Does it make sense to demolish the world’s busiest airport just to build an even bigger one, or is it too much ambition for a desert?
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