ATM 2025: Underground train to ease travel between eight planned DWC Airport concourses

The 260-million passenger terminal aims for 'intimacy at scale', Dubai Airports CEO says

Plans for a new terminal at Al Maktoum International Airport, a project valued at around $35 billion. AP

Dubai's new terminal at Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) will feature an underground train to ease travel between the huge facility's eight planned concourses.

The terminal, which will have capacity for 260 million passengers once completed, will be designed to create an "intimacy of scale" with shorter walking distances, Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, said.

"You'll have a very comprehensive underground train that will take you around the airport and you'll get off at the concourse station and once you're in the lounge or restaurants and bars, then it's a very short walk from there to the aircraft," he said.

Minimised distances will be particularly important for transit passengers dashing to catch connecting flights.

"It's going to be very competitive out there in the future, and we'll all be competing for the transfer [passenger] market," he said.

The underground system will make travel times fast, efficient and competitive in circulating transfer passengers through the airport.

"It's such a large site that is actually the same distance by rail ... going from, say King's Cross to Paddington [station] in London, which is sort of a 20-minute train ride," he said.

"There are a number of design considerations that we're going to have to think carefully about to make sure we create a fantastic product."

The terminal will be designed with visual cues to ease the passenger journey.

"If you're sitting in the lounge with a bubble glass canopy over the top, you can see your aeroplane," he said. "We could actually project on the glass which aircraft is going where so you know that that's your plane to New York and you've a couple of hundred meters maximum to get there."

The project planners will use AI to programme "the most convenient logistics" of operations.

"What we don't want to do is co-mingle 260 million people together," he said. "What we want to is to devolve that into eight individual concourses."

DWC contract awarded

Dubai has awarded a contract for "concept of operations" at DWC's new terminal to review the design and how the facility will meet customer service and capacity goals, Mr Griffiths told The National on Wednesday.

"That will suggest whether we need to make any changes to the design ... the more testing you can do and the more strategising about the end result that you can do at this stage, the more efficient and cheaper and quicker it will be to build a satisfactory design result," he said.

The design, involving eight smaller airports into a very large airport, will be "so ground-breaking in so many ways" in terms of the technology, customer experience, retail and the passenger journey.

"It's so important to get that right ... our customers will not experience the legacy processes that get in the way of good service today," he said.

Mr Griffiths declined to provide the value of the contract or the company.

The project is "incredibly complex" and the timeline to complete it within the decade is "very aggressive".

DXB closure and real estate opportunity

The emirate will close Dubai International Airport (DXB) once enough capacity has been built at DWC and the airlines make the transition to the new facility.

The move to close DXB and redevelop the area unlocks prime real estate at the much-coveted site in Al Garhoud.

"That's where the growth of Dubai will be because we're right up against the Sharjah border, so it will spread the city out and perhaps make it a little easier with the traffic problems we've got today," Mr Griffiths said.

He did not disclose the master plan for the redevelopment of the DXB site.

"It's quite a long time in the future and I'm sure there are a number of real estate developers in Dubai that would love to get their hands on that site and redevelop it," he said.

"I can't give you an indication of how that would be, we've got quite a lot of things to get through before we get there."