🌅 Dubai’s New Airport Will Be Bigger than Manhattan

SOURCE

Coop Himmelb(l)au

WHAT TO KNOW

• Dubai is building a colossal $35 billion expansion of its Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC), constructing what experts describe as the most ambitious transportation infrastructure project on Earth. The 27-square-mile behemoth—bigger than the island of Manhattan (23 square miles)—will be the world’s largest airport when completed, featuring five runways, 400+ airplane gates, and some 31 miles of driverless subterranean rail. The first major phase is scheduled to finish in 2032.

WHY IT MATTERS

• When the expansion is complete (no official date has been set), the airport will have capacity to process 260 million passengers each year, more than twice the capacity of the current record holder, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which welcomed 106 million passengers in 2025. It’s also more than double that of Dubai International Airport, the world’s second busiest airport and the city’s current main hub, which processed 95 million passengers last year. Beyond people, the new DWC will have the capacity to process 12 million tonnes of cargo each year, more than twice that of Hong Kong International Airport, the current cargo leader at 5 million tonnes annually.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Dubai is located within an eight-hour flight of about two-thirds of the world’s population, and experts say the city’s economic success in recent decades is inextricably tied to the success of its airports, particularly Dubai International Airport and the countless hotels, tourist attractions, and retail operations it’s helped create. The aviation industry is linked to one out of every five jobs in Dubai and contributed more than a quarter (27%) of the city’s GDP in 2023, a share that’s expected to rise to nearly a third (32%) by 2030.