Officials at Dubai Airports have confirmed that the northern runway rehabilitation programme at Dubai International (DXB) has passed its midway point and is on schedule to reopen on June 22.
The runway closed on May 9 and since then over 1,000 vehicles and 3,000 people have been working on-site at DXB to complete the project, according to news agency WAM.
The programme involves resurfacing the entire 4.5 km long northern runway, strengthening the wider runway strip, as well as reinforcing the paving on key taxiway entries and exits, besides repairing drainage infrastructure.
Aeronautical ground lighting, navigational aids and meteorological equipment are also being replaced, and a navigation aids substation is being relocated.
Over the course of the runway closure, a few flights have been relocated to Dubai World Central (DWC) which has been handling more than 1,000 flights from several international carriers, including flydubai, Spicejet, Indigo, Gulf Air, Air India Express and Qatar Airways. Dubai Airports has announced multiple transport services between the two airports to cater to all travellers.
A free bus service between all terminals of DXB and DWC airport operates every 30 minutes throughout the day. Dubai Taxi Corporation has also removed the flag fall charges for any journeys starting from DWC for airport customers.
DXB’s southern runway meanwhile maintains operations as per its schedule. DXB’s passenger volumes rose to 13.6 million in the first quarter of 2022, up 15.7 per cent compared to 11.8 million passengers in the final quarter of 2021. Flight movements during the first quarter totalled 81,966, an increase of 5.8 per cent compared to Q4 2021 during which 77,475 flights were recorded at DXB.
India was DXB’s top destination country with passenger traffic reaching 1.6 million, followed by Saudi Arabia (1.1 million), Pakistan (997,000) and the UK (934,000).
The top three cities in terms of passenger numbers were London (617,000), Riyadh (517,000), Jeddah (337,000), followed by Istanbul (324,000).
