Dubai International Airport expected to surpass Heathrow by 2020

UAE's Dubai International Airport is expected to surpass London's Heathrow International Airport as the world's third busiest international airport by 2020, with Heathrow expecting to handle 90 million passengers p/a and Dubai International expecting to handle 98 million passengers p/a by 2020. 

Director of media relations of BAA Airports, Simon Baugh stated, "Dubai International, unfortunately, will probably overtake us as the third busiest international airport at some point of time in this decade." He further said that Heathrow is aiming to achieve 99.3% of total capacity and cannot accommodate additional services because the UK Government has banned evening services, from 23:30 to 6:00, but Dubai, however, can accommodate such services.

 

Dubai Airports plans to invest USD7.8 billion on airport expansion to increase the airport's capacity from 60 million to 90 million passengers p/a by 2018. One of its expansion plan includes the construction of Concourse 3, the world's largest dedicated A380 facility, which is scheduled for completion by the end of 2012.