Dubai International Airport will close its Southern runway for 45 days of extensive upgrade work from April 16…

Passenger flights at Dubai World Central (DWC) airport are expected to increase by a huge 700 per cent during the 45 day runway closure at Dubai International Airport (DXB), according to Dubai Media Office.

From April 16 to May 30 2019, DXB will close its Southern runway while it undergoes extensive upgrade work.

This will see a dramatic surge in passenger planes departing and arriving from Dubai’s second airport, Dubai World Central, also known as Al Maktoum International Airport. DWC is located in Jebel Ali, about 60km from DXB.

Low-cost carrier Flydubai has already said it will operate flights to 39 of its destinations from DWC.

These are the Flydubai destinations that will operate from DWC: Addis Ababa, Abha, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Colombo, Cochin, Delhi, Gassim, Gizan, Ha’il, Hyderabad, Isfahan, Karachi, Lucknow, Lar, Faisalabad, Chennai, Medinah, Mashhad, Multan, Najaf, Riyadh, Istanbul, Sialkot, Shiraz, Ta’if, Thiruvananthapuram, and Tabuk.

While these destinations will operate from both DXB and DWC: Amman, Bahrain, Beirut, Dammam, Alexandria, Jeddah, Kabul, Khartoum, Kuwait, and Muscat.

ALSO READ: Here’s everything we know so far about the DXB runway closure

Flights to all other Flydubai destinations will continue to operate from DXB.

Emirates has already stated that it will reduce the number of flights it operates by 25 per cent. The airline will cancel some flights, reduce the number of flights to certain destinations, and reschedule others.

The airline is yet to release an updated schedule of flights during the 45-day runway closure.

The last time DXB operated with just one runway was in 2014, due to upgrade and repair work on both its runways. That closure, which lasted for 80 days, reportedly cost Emirates an estimated $467 million (Dhs1.7 billion) in lost revenue.

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