Dubai International Airport captured from space

Image comes courtesy of Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre and shows the newly launched US$1.2 billion Concourse D at Dubai International Airport.

A satellite image captures the new Concourse D at Dubai International Airport, runways and planes taxiing to their gates. Courtesy Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre

DUBAI // The massive, space-age infrastructure needed to handle 90 million passengers flying in and out of the world’s biggest airport has been captured, conveniently, by a photograph from a space satellite.

The image comes courtesy of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre and shows the new Dh4.4 billion Concourse D at Dubai International Airport, runways and planes taxiing to their gates.

Surrounding the airport, the residential and industrial areas of Dubai can also be seen.

Concourse D has 21 plane contact stands, four of which will be able to accommodate the double-decker Airbus A380 and Boeing 747 planes.

There are also 11 remote stands and the concourse is linked to the renovated Terminal 1 by a train that can transport 300 passengers at a time.

With Concourse D, Dubai Airport has used the last available space for expansion, but that does not mean passenger numbers will plateau.

Dubai Airports has launched a new programme, called DXB Plus, as part of its master plan to raise the capacity to 118 million passengers a year by 2023.

The programme will also enhance services through the design and implementation of customer-centric processes and the use of smart technology.

It will allow for unconstrained growth of Dubai’s aviation sector until the middle of the next decade, when the next phase of Dubai World Central, in Jebel Ali, is targeted for delivery.