Dubai Airports will require more than one airport's worth of staff during the testing and transition period from Dubai International Airport (DXB) to Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

In response to a question from Khaleej Times, Paul Griffiths stated that this transition presents a significant challenge. Therefore, some employees might have to delay their retirement plans during the transition period.

In April 2024, the Dubai government announced that all operations at DXB will be transferred to Al Maktoum International (DWC). A new Dh128-billion passenger terminal at the DWC will scale up passenger capacity to 260 million annually and“fully absorb” DXB's operations in 10 years.

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Dubai International is the world's busiest international airport, handling 46 million passengers in the first half of 2025, marking its busiest first half on record. In the second quarter alone, DXB served 22.5 million guests, an increase of 3.1 per cent over the same period last year. April emerged as the busiest month of the quarter and the most active April on record, with 8 million guests passing through the terminals.

Griffiths earlier said that some of the airlines will be relocating to DWC in the coming years as DXB will approach its full capacity. Dubai International airport is expected to reach 100 million over the next 18 months and around 115 million by 2031 before it relocates to DWC in 2032.

“One of the big challenges we've got is to manage the transition between the two airports. Because we're going to have to continue to employ all the people with the operation still at full capacity at DXB, whilst we get DWC ready for occupation and operation. So anyone that's planning to retire across that opening period probably may have to delay their plans a bit, because we'll need probably not quite double, but we'll certainly need more than one airport's worth of staff to be able to make the operations work at both airports,” Griffiths said during a recent interaction with media after the Dubai Airshow 2025 press conference.

As reported earlier, Dubai started awarding contracts for Al Maktoum International Airport earlier this year.

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