Dubai International Airport will permanently close in 2035, with every flight and service now using the site set to move to Al Maktoum International Airport. The transfer will shift operations from DXB to DWC, including the networks of Dubai-based Emirates and flydubai.
The change is expected to begin around 2032, according to people familiar with the plan, and it marks the end of an airport that first opened in 1960 and grew into the world’s busiest international airport. Paul Griffiths, who has helped shape the strategy, said there was little sense in running two major hubs so close together and added: “We will move every single service to DWC.”
DWC is already in the middle of a £28 billion expansion designed to turn it into the city’s main air gateway for the decades ahead. The enlarged airport is expected to handle as many as 260 million passengers a year, with five parallel runways and up to 400 aircraft gates, a scale that would make it one of the largest aviation complexes anywhere in the world.
The logic for the switch is as much geography as growth. Dubai International Airport is sandwiched between two major highways and residential neighbourhoods, leaving little room to expand, while the new airport has space to absorb the traffic. Griffiths said that by the time the move happens, every major asset at DXB will be nearing the end of its operating life, making it uneconomic to keep the airport open unless vast new sums were poured in. That calculation, not sentiment, is driving the decision.
The wider ambition is bigger than one airport. The move is meant to give the United Arab Emirates a stronger grip on global air travel and logistics, with Al Maktoum International Airport set up to become the world’s largest air hub. Reports say the full project will not be finished until 2057, and the site may also connect to the upcoming Etihad Rail High Speed Rail. For travellers and airlines, the decisive moment comes in the early 2030s, when the shift begins for real and DXB starts its long farewell.
