MSN - TOI World Desk
09 October 2025
Al Maktoum International also called Dubai World Central (DWC) is Dubai’s giant airport project: a Dh128-billion (about $35 billion) expansion that will eventually include five parallel runways, roughly 400 gates and the capacity to handle well over 150 million passengers a year, scaling up to about 260 million in later stages. The plan is to make DWC the city’s primary hub and to absorb most operations from Dubai International (DXB) over the coming decade.
Al Maktoum sits inside Dubai South near Jebel Ali and is being built as a full aviation city passenger terminals, cargo terminals, logistics zones and a supporting residential and business district. The headline numbers matter because they show scale: the approved expansion (Dh128 billion / ~$35bn) will give DWC five runways, around 400 aircraft gates and staged capacity increases an intermediate target of roughly 150 million passengers within a decade, rising to 260 million per year when the project is complete. Cargo capacity is projected in the millions of tonnes, positioning DWC as a global logistics hub as much as a passenger airport.
Dubai officials have said DXB will reach practical capacity in the early 2030s, and the government expects to transition major operations to DWC within about a ten-year window. That means travelers should expect gradual, phased moves: new terminals and services will open in stages while DXB continues full operations for the foreseeable future. Airlines including Emirates and Flydubai are expected to use DWC as a major hub once the new terminals are ready, but exact schedules of airline moves will depend on completed phases and regulatory steps. In short: don’t expect a single “switch off” day; plan for a rolling transition over the next decade.
