Paul Griffiths interview at Dubai Airshow 2023: 'The outlook is extremely strong'

Gulf News

Dubai International Airport (DXB) will remain steadfast in its commitment to upgrade facilities and technology at its main hub in the emirate, according to Dubai Airports’ CEO, Paul Griffiths. This is despite carriers Emirates and flydubai placing a joint order for 125 new Boeing wide-body Dreamliners.  The initial phase of upgrades will focus on Terminal 2 and Concourses C and E at Terminal 3, Griffiths added.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/business/aviation/dxb-to-have-seamless-check-in-immigration-process-we-want-to-eliminate-check-ins-altogether-1.1700057434620  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #Dubai #airports

Transcript

00:00We had such a fantastic first half and now to end the year to date in September,

00:070.1% or 40% growth over last year is a remarkable outcome and it won't be long before I think we'll

00:14be recording a new record for passenger traffic. Possibly not during 2023 but certainly the outlook

00:22for the next two years is extremely strong and you've seen the new aircraft orders that have

00:27been announced, some of them arriving fairly shortly, so we've clearly got our work cut out

00:32to be able to accommodate both the growth in capacity and the growth in quality of service

00:37at the airport which will undoubtedly be necessary to be able to welcome all those millions of extra

00:44people to come through DXB. I wouldn't say stressed, I would say more excited about the

00:49opportunity. We've already started the expansion of Terminal 2 which is one of our early

00:56objectives because of course the Fly Dubai expansion even before the existing aircraft

01:00orders that were announced this week was always dramatic, something like 166%

01:06over the last few years which is quite an incredible rate of expansion. But now of course

01:12that's been consolidated with wide-bodied orders from Fly Dubai and of course we've seen the 90

01:18orders of the 777-8 and 777-9 from Emirates and a lot of these aircraft are arriving over the

01:25next few years so we've clearly got to do some major expansion and enhancement of the facilities

01:31at DXB and we've got some major programs, the refurbishment and expansion of Concourse C

01:37to accommodate more customers, the rebuilding of Concourse E which is a dramatic and much-needed

01:45expansion in our passenger handling capacity and really the general upgrade across the whole

01:50airport of the bars, restaurants, the whole retail experience. We cannot stop, we will not stop and

01:57we will continue to make the passenger journey more exciting, less stressful and more appealing

02:04than any other hub around the world. This is a very competitive business, we compete with other hubs,

02:12passengers when they choose their journeys can use, up to 70% of them can use an alternative

02:18hub and we want to make sure that every time they've got compelling reasons to choose DXB.

02:23Well they have to be very short programs because clearly as these aircraft arrive we need more

02:29stands, we need more slots on the runway, we need the processing capacity so we have to

02:35make absolutely sure we don't end up with a shortage of capacity, that's why the pressure

02:39is really on to deliver in short order. But we've got plenty of experience of delivering these

02:45mega projects over a very very compressed time frame and we just have to continue what we've done

02:51for 60 years since the airport started.

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