By Staff www.khaleejtimes.com
1. Both runways at Dubai International are undergoing a phased refurbishment and upgrading during an 80-day period commencing May 1, 2014.
2. The southern runway will be closed from May 1 to May 31, 2014, while the northern runway will be out of operation from May 31 to July 20, 2014 as the upgrades are implemented.
3. To safeguard service levels and optimise capacity while the work is taking place, scheduled passenger flights at Dubai International will be reduced and all freighter, charter and general aviation flights will be diverted to Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC). In all there will be a 26 per cent reduction in the number of aircraft movements at DXB during the maintenance period.
4. As airlines will be using bigger aircraft where possible and load factors are expected to be higher than usual, the actual reduction in seat and passenger numbers will be less than 26 per cent.
5. The northern runway is nearing the end of its design life and requires resurfacing and other modifications to accommodate future traffic. At the same time there is a requirement to upgrade runway lighting and construct new rapid exit taxiways on the southern runway to boost capacity.
6. The runway rehabilitation and additional taxiway construction will result in the consumption of circa 800,000 tonnes of aggregates, 11,000 airfield lighting luminaires, 1,050km of cabling, 1,750 new manholes and 8.3km of drainage piping.
7. Other than the planned changes to flight schedules, the construction will have no direct impact on traffic. However, a single runway means less flexibility and therefore significant planning is underway to ensure that Dubai International is able to quickly recover from any disruption such as poor weather conditions.
