Abu Dhabi: Dubai International Airport (DXB), the world’s busiest for international travel, will close one of its two runways for 45 days, some Indian flights will be redirected to Dubai World Central (DWC), the emirate’s second airport.
The northern runway will be closed from May 9 to June 22 to carry out “complete refurbishment”.
The DXB will continue to operate flights throughout the 45-day refurbishment period but at a reduced capacity.
Dubai-based airline FlyDubai would operate flights to 34 destinations including India from DWC during this period “to ensure minimum disruption to passengers travel plans”.
The 34 destinations to which Flydubai will operate flights from DWC are —Addis Ababa, Ahmedabad, Alexandria, AlUla, Bahrain, Chattogram, Chennai, Dammam, Delhi, Dhaka, Doha, Entebbe, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Jeddah, Karachi, Kathmandu, Khartoum, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Kuwait, Lucknow, Madinah, Mashhad, Multan, Mumbai, Muscat, Najaf, Quetta, Riyadh, Salalah, Sialkot and Yanbu.
Flights to all other destinations will continue to operate from Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport.
The FlyDubai has urged passengers to check their departure and arrival airports in advance of travel to ensure they have the correct information.
The runway last underwent such extensive repairs in 2014, while the southern runway was similarly refurbished in 2019.
“As we saw in 2019, runway enhancement programmes continue to support the long-term vision for Dubai as it reinforces its position as one of the world’s leading aviation hubs,” FlyDubai’s chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith said.
After the completion of the runway refurbishment project, FlyDubai will resume flights to all destinations from Dubai International Airport (DXB).
DWC is set to reopen its passenger terminal on May 4 for commercial flights, two years after the COVID-19 pandemic suspended its operations.
DXB remains the world’s busiest airport in terms of international passenger numbers for the eighth consecutive year after registering 29.1 million annual traffic in 2021 and expects passenger traffic to more than double this year to 57 million.
