New planes may take Dubai airport capacity to 600 destinations: CEO

Emirates eyes over 300 aircraft, 200 destinations before DWC shift

- Waheed Abbas

A flydubai aircraft at Dubai International Airport. The number of passengers passing through Dubai International will reach 95.3 million at the end of this year. - FILE PHOTO

Dubai Airports' capacity could reach more than 600 destinations from its current 240 destinations, due to new modern long range aircraft that local and foreign carriers will use in the coming years, said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports.

Speaking at the panel discussion at the 'Dubai City Briefing' organised by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, he said this will make Dubai an unassailable global aviation hub between the East and West.

"The great thing is that the technology is changing in the air and on the ground. One of the most exciting things is that the new technology of aircraft has fantastic range and performance, and comes in all shapes and sizes.

"Now, the wide-bodied aircraft can serve the long, thick routes and the congested airports very successfully, but the narrow-bodied aircraft as well, with fantastic range, can fly up to nine hours, with a capacity of between 160 and 200 people on board. So, all of those secondary cities in Asia, Europe, and Africa can have very, very good, connected service directly to Dubai," he added.

"The number of cities that we're serving at the moment, from Dubai International (DXB), which is about 240, could grow to over 600 destinations in the future and would make us pretty unassailable as the global hub of choice between East and West. At the moment, one-third of the world's population is within four hours flying time of Dubai, and two-thirds within eight hours. Now we could actually extend that range and cover all of those secondary cities across Europe," he said.