Dubai International Airport By Roger Frazier At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

When speaking of the Dubai travel sector, the vast majority of attention is given over to its hotels. There is nothing too suprising in this fact – the hotels of Dubai have for some time now been examples of stunning architecture and incredible ambition coming together to create constructions that the rest of the world looks at in envy and nervousness. While traditionalists will for some time yet contend that Paris and London have more culture, that New York has more of a cosmopolitan buzz and that Tokyo cannot be beaten for technological wizardry, the younger generation experience a strong pull when Dubai is the subject of conversation. Amid all the talk of the city’s incredible hotels, the airport that handles all this human traffic is often forgotten.

Yet Dubai International Airport is just as important as the hotel sector which it feeds. Not only is it important for the Dubai travel industry, it is in fact one of the major aviation hubs in the entire Middle East. It is equipped to handle 60 million passengers and more than two million tonnes of cargo every year – with expansion currently underway to bring its capacity up to 80 billion tourists a year. The renovation of the airport, due to be completed in 2011, will bring the figures up to three terminals and three concourses, two cargo terminals, three large exhibition halls in an expo center and a major aircraft maintenance hub. In addition to these figures, the airport was last year the 20th busiest passenger airport in the world (rising to 6th busiest when international passenger traffic is the criterion).

Dubai International Airport is the home of Emirates Airways, the national airline and one of the most prominent carriers in the world today. It is unquestionably the biggest carrier in the Middle East in terms of traffic handled and in terms of international importance, with business interests stretching beyond the sector. The airport however is not monopolised by Emirates, as it is also home to the low-cost budget airline Flydubai, and a secondary hub for many of the national airlines of the other Middle East nations. The expansion program of the airport has made it a major option for other airlines, and the recent building of Terminal 3 along with the connected and ongoing building of Concourse 3 will make it one of the major hubs for Airbus A380 flights.

Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport is the biggest building in the world in terms of floor space. This, of course, is just another reason why Dubai travel is so widely talked about – it breaks records every time the construction workers break ground on a new development. Although most flights out of the airport are to other Middle Eastern destinations, it is also one of the major hubs worldwide for flights to London Heathrow. In addition to all of this, the airport is home to a major flower center, which is the major regional hub for the import and export of flowers to and from the region – a center which ensures the proper handling of these delicate goods.

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