World's busiest airport to close down forever – in business since 1960

The phased relocation is expected to begin around 2032 and will take several years to complete. DWC is currently undergoing a massive £28 billion development, with it set to become the world’s largest air hub. The switch will see all flights and services that depart and land at DXB move to DWC, including those of Dubai-based Emirates and flydubai.

When work is complete the airport in Dubai World Central is expected to handle an annual passenger capacity of up to 260 million people, making it the largest in the world.

It will be five times the size of DXB, with five runways, 400 aircraft gates, and capacity for 260 million passengers every year.

Dubai International Airport officially opened on September 30, 1960 with just a small terminal building and an 1,800-meter compacted sand runway the airport quickly grew to accommodate millions and millions of people.

The airport is the second busiest in the world, having welcomed 95.2 million passengers in 2025 and it is the world’s busiest airport by international passenger traffic.

Mr Griffiths, speaking at the Arabian Travel Market in 2025, said: “The current thinking is that when DXB gets to a point where we’ve got enough capacity created at DWC (Al Maktoum International Airport) to make the complete transition, that we will move every single service from DXB to DWC.

“There’s little sense in operating two major airport hubs in such close proximity, within 70 kilometers of each other.

“The other point to remember is that by then, if we’ve done our sums of calculations right, every single asset at DXB will be close to the end of its useful operating life.

“So the economics of keeping DXB open will not really be possible to do unless we invest a huge amount of money.”