Dubai confident of 70m passenger target

The head of Dubai's aviation industry, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, president of DCAA, chairman of Dubai Airports and chief executive of Emirates Airline, said he is confident that despite the three-month closure of one of Dubai International's two runways the airport will hit its 70 million passenger target this year.
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The resurfaced runways reopened on July 21 and AL MAktoum said: “We are confident about the airport handling over 70 million passengers in 2014 which will bring us further closer to becoming the world’s number one airport for international passengers.”
Writing in the August edition of Via Dubai, the official bi-lingual newsletter of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA), Sheikh Ahmed said that other developments are underway. “We are on the mark in terms of giving a big boost to the aviation industry which we anticipate will contribute 32 per cent to Dubai’s GDP by 2020,” he wrote.
The next project is a new concourse - Concourse D - which will be connected to an existing terminal by automated train and is due to open in the first quarter of next year.
A trial run is planned to be conducted soon.
The fourth concourse is part of the $7.8 billion expansion programme designed to boost the airport’s capacity to over 100 million passengers annually by 2020. The development of Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, with an eventual capacity of 160 million passengers, is also progressing in phases.
 

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