Dubai World Central Airport

Dubai World Central Airport is the latest in a series of projects designed to make Dubai the city of the future. The airport project (also known as Al Maktoum Airport) was necessitated by the now uncontrolled expansion of the city’s existing international airport, located just a stone’s throw from the city centre; it envisages the construction of no less than five runways on a total area of 14,000 hectares in the far south of the city, and it is estimated that it will be able to accommodate between 160 million and 260 million passengers a year, making it by far the busiest airport in the world.

But the dreams and ambitions of the Sheikh of Dubai have had to come up against the reality of the crisis and recession that hit the emirate hard from 2008 to 2012. The project was supposed to be fully completed by 2017, but as a result of financial problems, everything has been postponed until 2027.

The airport today

To date, Dubai World Central hosts only a few airlines although it is not fully operational: only one runway has been open to traffic since the airport opened to passenger flights on 26 October 2013.

In the first quarter of 2014, the airport saw only 102,000 passengers pass through, but despite the very difficult start, the future for Al Maktoum airport seems rather bright: the airport will allow four aircraft to land at the same time, and the structure will include three terminals, one of which will be dedicated exclusively to Emirates, one dedicated to low-cost flights and a third dedicated to all other airlines.

There will be hotels, shopping centres and, above all, hangars to handle all possible aircraft maintenance. Dubai Al Maktoum Airport will also be connected to the existing Dubai International Airport via a high-speed express monorail system.

How to reach Dubai from Dubai World Central Airport

Al Maktoum Airport is located in the middle of the desert, well away from the city’s population centres and major facilities, and there are no hotels or accommodation facilities of any kind nearby. Public transport is scarce and infrequent, and taxis are very expensive given the enormous distances they have to cover.

The nearest metro station is Jebel Ali, which is over 20 km away, but the F55 bus that departs from the airport once an hour reaches the Ibn Battuta Mall metro station, over 30 km from the terminal.

From there, it is a further 45 minutes by metro to the Deira area. It is perhaps better to hire a car once you have disembarked, given the decidedly cheap prices of this option and the freedom it brings.

Landing in the evening, on the other hand, theF55A night bus departs from the terminal once every hour, ending its journey at the Al Satwa bus station in about 90 minutes. From Al Satwa, it is possible to reach the rest of the city essentially by taxi.

It is therefore clear that landing at Dubai World Central brings with it great logistical disadvantages, which increase considerably if a transfer to Dubai International Airport is necessary: the two facilities are in fact over 60 km apart and there is no public transport connecting them. The taxi becomes the only option, but costs around 250 dirhams (over 50 euros).

The situation was supposed to improve with the construction of the purple line of the metro, which would connect the two airports along the Al Khail road. The purple line was announced in 2007 but work never started, partly due to the global recession that hit the city in the following years.

It was supposed to have only eight intermediate stations and would have connected the two airports in about 40 minutes travelling at an average speed of more than 110 km/h.

Arrivals and Departures