Few infrastructure projects reshape an events destination as completely as the one now taking form in the desert south-west of Dubai. Al Maktoum International Airport — known in the trade as DWC, and formally as Dubai World Central — is being built to eventually handle 260 million passengers a year across five runways. When it is finished, it will be the world’s largest-capacity airport, and the migration to it will be the biggest airport transition ever attempted.

For anyone who books, sells or attends congresses in the Gulf, the timeline matters more than the superlatives.

The timeline planners should work from

Preparations for shifting services from Dubai International Airport (DXB) to DWC begin in earnest next year. The first tangible milestone arrives towards the end of 2027, when a second runway opens at Al Maktoum.

The date to circle, however, is 2032. That is when Dubai Airports expects the first 150-million-passenger phase at DWC to be ready and, with it, the full move of operations away from DXB. Notably, two runways alone are enough to carry those 150 million passengers, according to Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths. The full 260-million build-out is a much longer horizon — realistically around 2057.

Earlier this year, the emirate’s government confirmed that the roughly Dhs128 billion megaproject remains on schedule for 2032 despite regional disruption, and the site has now entered large-scale construction.

Who moves, and in what order

The sequence is being handled as a phased migration rather than a single switch-over. Airlines are being encouraged to pick up slots at DWC as availability at DXB tightens.

  • flydubai is expected to lead, though even a single carrier will need several years to fully unwind its DXB operation.
  • Emirates follows as DXB approaches its ceiling within the next few years.
  • Foreign carriers join once the 150-million-passenger phase opens in 2032.

Griffiths has sketched the capacity curve plainly: DXB crosses 100 million passengers within two years, reaches towards 114 million by 2031, and then hands over in 2032 — “that big moment where we achieve the world’s largest transition to the world’s largest airport from the world’s largest airport.”

He has also framed the ambition in service terms rather than square metres, promising to “make it intimate on a large scale” so that each of the first 150 million passengers feels like “the most special” person at that point in the journey. The technologies Dubai is piloting today, he says, will be applied at industrial scale in the new terminal. As for the final 260-million milestone in the late 2050s, Griffiths noted he would be 100 years old by then and intends, “if there are enough spare parts,” to be present to greet passenger number 260 million.

Why this is a meetings story, not just an aviation one

Three consequences deserve a place in destination planning.

Ground access changes the map. DWC will connect to the planned Etihad Rail high-speed line, cutting Dubai–Abu Dhabi journeys to about 30 minutes. For rotating regional congresses, that begins to make the two emirates a single, practical catchment rather than two competing bids.

The centre of gravity shifts south. Dubai South, the district around the new airport, is where Griffiths expects the city’s growth to concentrate, since Dubai is already built up against the Sharjah border to the north. He argues the move will “spread the city out” and ease today’s traffic pressure — relevant to any organiser weighing hotel clusters, venue proximity and delegate transfer times a decade out.

DXB is unlikely to survive as a second hub. Speaking at Arabian Travel Market in 2025, Griffiths said there is “little sense in operating two major airport hubs in such close proximity, within 70 kilometres of each other.” He added that by the time of the transition, “every single asset at DXB will be close to the end of its useful operating life,” making continued operation uneconomic “unless we invest a huge amount of money.” Developers reportedly “would love to get their hands on that site,” but no official redevelopment plan has been confirmed. A freed-up parcel that size, minutes from Dubai’s existing hotel and exhibition stock, is a variable worth watching.

The planning takeaway

Nothing here forces a decision this year. But events with multi-year lead times — biennial congresses, long-cycle association meetings, exhibition contracts signed in 2029 for delivery in 2033 — will straddle the changeover. The safe assumption is that any Dubai event held from 2032 onwards arrives through Al Maktoum, on a site still being completed around it, with rail access to Abu Dhabi and a city whose southern half is filling in fast.