Gulf Construction Online - Dubai gears for massive influx

Airport Construction

Some 119 cranes tower over the huge construction site at Dubai International Airport.

Dubai gears for massive influx

A new airport city at Jebel Ali and the expansion of Dubai’s showpiece airport will give the emirate the capacity to handle an amazing 190 million passengers by 2010. A look at the status of these projects.

01 July 2005

Major plans have been launched that will enable Dubai to handle a massive 190 million passengers per year by 2010.

“This figure includes 70 million passengers passing through Dubai International Airport and 120 million through the new Jebel Ali Airport,” says Anita Mehra Homayoun, director of marketing and corporate communications at the DCA.
Capacity expansion on this scale will elevate Dubai's position in the global aviation league tables and make it an important global hub. With this capacity, Dubai will also have the largest aviation infrastructure in the Middle East and North Africa.
Moves towards this goal were made in 2002 with the launch of expansion plans for Dubai International Airport at a huge investment of $4.1 billion. Further strides were made with the announcement of a project early this year to develop Jebel Ali Airport City, whose first phase alone is estimated to cost $547 million.

Dubai International Airport
Construction work on the mega Dubai Airport expansion project is going full steam ahead and is drawing up some amazing statistics in its wake.
The project – currently the largest airport development in the world – involves the construction of Terminal 3, Concourse 2 and Concourse 3 – to be used exclusively by Emirates airlines – Cargo Mega Terminal (CMT) and a $137 million upgrade to the existing Terminal 2.
According to a spokesperson for the DCA, work on Terminal 3 and Concourse 2 is 30 per cent complete with an average of 14,000 to18,000 people working on site assisted by some 119 cranes and a fleet of construction machinery. Construction on concourse 3 is scheduled to begin towards the end of 2006. Detailed designs have been completed for Concourse 3 – a specially designed and purpose-built terminal for Airbus A380 superjumbos – and bids for the construction will be invited for the work soon.
Work on the Terminal 3 and Concourse 2 is scheduled to be completed by 2007. Concourse 3 is expected to be completed by 2008 and the CMT will be built in phases and completed by 2018.
The scale of construction can be gauged by the fact that the contractors have so far cast 2.5 million cu m of concrete on the site with a daily average of 4,579 cu m. To date, 595,563 tonnes of reinforcement steel has been used and 77,407 tonnes of structural steel has been put in place. On average, a total of 394 trucks are ferrying man and material to the huge site. Some 37 contractors and 139 sub-contractors are operating on the site to complete this mega project.
Al Naboodah-Laing is currently working on the Concourse 2 and Terminal 3 under an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, the largest under the expansion project.
More than 10 million cu m of earth has been excavated for the underground Terminal 3.
The expansion programme has been divided into five major elements. The first element is the expansion of passenger facilities, including Terminal 3, Concourse 2 and Concourse 3. The second element incorporates the expansion of cargo facilities, including the CMTs, and the third element is the expansion of airfield facilities, such as new aprons, taxiways, roads, tunnels, runway extension and so on.
The project is following the strict timelines set for the development.
Already 90 per cent of all the tender packages for Terminal 3 and Concourse 2 have been awarded.
“Some of the major tenders include the electro-mechanical-architectural finishes, baggage handling, aerobridges and facade/external works. The pace of the work is amazing and already the shell of Concourse 2 is clearly visible,” the spokesperson adds.
The Cargo Mega Terminal, which will cater mainly to Emirates Skycargo, will be completed by 2007 and will have the capacity to handle 5 million tonnes of cargo annually.
“The new cargo complex would bring Dubai airport among the top six airports in the world, in terms of cargo handling capacity,” spokesperson points out.
The $50-million first phase of the Dubai Flower Centre (DFC), which operates as a free zone, was completed last year. With its high-tech facilities and round-the-clock operation, the centre is ideally placed to act as an international distribution centre for cut flowers and other perishables. The project will offer an enhanced level of automation over a five- to seven-year period for processing flower products.
The main structure of the DFC has been built as a single project but the interior fit-out will take place over three phases. The three-level building covers a footprint of 32,000 sq m and each phase of the facility is designed to handle around 150,000 tonnes of flowers and other perishables annually.
The $300 million centre, when completed, will have a floor area of approximately 100,000 sq m, including export chambers and offices (aside from product break down and build-up stations, and automated sorting areas).
The contract for the expansion of the Terminal 2 of the Dubai International Airport is likely to be awarded soon by the DCA. Upon completion in two years, the terminal will have 110,000 sq m of built-up space to cater to five million passengers annually. It is designed to have 62 check-in counters and six baggage carousels.
With the phenomenal growth of Dubai, the pressure on existing airport facilities has been growing year on year with the increasing passenger traffic and number of airlines and expanding cargo operation.
In 2004, a total of 21.7 million passengers used Dubai International Airport. This figure is expected to go up to 25 million this year. The first quarter statistics show that passenger movement is up by 12.7 per cent with a 6.02 million passenger throughput from 5.3 million a year earlier. Cargo traffic increased 18.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2005 to 303,206 tonnes.
Dubai International Airport at present has the capacity to handle 22 million passengers annually. On completion of the expansion programme by 2008, the airport will have the capacity to handle over 70 million passengers annually.

Jebel Ali airport
Preliminary work has been launched on the Dh2 billion ($547 million) first phase of the Jebel Ali Airport City which includes two components – Dubai Logistics City (DLC) and runways for Jebel Ali Airport.
“Development of the Jebel Ali Airport is still in the planning stage. We had to bring its development forward due to the strong growth experienced by Dubai and Emirates airline,” Homayoun says.
The airport city – which will form the core of the world’s first integrated logistics and multi-modal transport platform – will be built 40 km from Dubai International Airport and will cover an area of 140 sq km. It will include not just a state-of-the-art airport, which is billed to be the largest of its kind in the world, but also several smaller cities, which will cater to the financial, industrial, service and tourism industry needs, according to the DCA.
The airport, which will consist of a number of terminals, six parallel runways, a large area for cargo and two main entrances, will have the capacity to handle 120 million passengers and 12 million tonnes of cargo annually in up to 16 air cargo terminals – all designed to handle the new generation Airbus A380-800F freighter version of the giant airliner. It will start operations in 2007.
The new airport will be encompassed within a carefully designed and integrated ‘city’ that will form the modern hub for aviation and business industries, and simultaneously cater to the general public and tourist.
Work on the Logistics City is moving ahead with the DCA having recently awarded a Dh100 million contract to Abu Dhabi-based Trident Contracting to carry out infrastructure work on the 25 sq km City, which will be ready for occupancy by the end of 2006. DLC will provide: land plots for dedicated industrial businesses, trading companies, distributors and logistics service providers; shared facilities, such as warehouses and offices as well as modern air-side cargo handling facilities.
Plans are afoot to build a 40-km bonded overland corridor between the Dubai International Airport and the proposed Jebel Ali Airport City to transfer cargo. The project is reported to be in the approval stage and work is expected to start soon. The corridor will give much needed access to goods at the DLC as major cargo operators will gradually move their operations from the Dubai Cargo Village to the Logistics City. The new corridor will handle transit cargo, freight and passengers and will allow goods to transit in less than 30 minutes. The road will be built as an express highway.
A dedicated metro rail line will also link the two airport facilities.
Among other developments, the Dubai government has launched a Dh8 billion ($2.17 billion) Exhibition City within Jebel Ali Airport City. International consultants are putting finishing touches on the design of the project, which will be completed in phases by 2020, and will have three-million sq m of space – the world’s largest in terms of display space, halls and offices. It will have facilities including hotels, restaurants, residential apartments. The exclusive exhibition facility will have 19 exhibition halls, conference halls and service facilities.
The project will be developed in phases, the first of which is expected to be complete in 2009. The first phase, to be implemented on 100,000 sq m, will have a parking space for more than 20,000 cars.