With an extremely tight schedule of just 45 days to complete, Dubai airport’s North Runway Rehabilitation project is currently underway according to plan and is scheduled to open for aviation traffic on June 22, 2022.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman of Dubai Airports, and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline & Group, on Wednesday, visited the North Runway at Dubai International Airport to review the progress of the rehabilitation works.

During the site visit, Sheikh Ahmed was briefed on the progress of the project and the efforts made by various multinational teams – spearheaded by UAE national expertise from the Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects (DAEP) to ensure the work is completed within the set timeframe.

Sheikh Ahmed praised the efforts of the teams, and said, “The North Runway Rehabilitation project is a remarkable step in our efforts to facilitate and cater for the continuous growth of passengers and support the evolution of the air transport industry in the emirate.

“Dubai constantly seeks to ensure the resilience of its airport infrastructure and enhance the services provided to all passengers through deploying the latest state-of-the-art technologies.”

The latest rehabilitation project included a workforce of over 400 engineers and field experts, as well as a labour force of around 3,800 people.

The North Runway underwent a major rehabilitation in 2014, followed by the South Runway in 2019 which included an upgrade to the technologies deployed, as part of a regular maintenance programme to ensure the resilience and round the clock availability of the airfield.

Approaching the end of its pavement life, and while airport traffic is witnessing an aggressive rebound post Covid-19, the decision to rehabilitate the North Runway was taken so as to not impact the airport’s operation in the next decade.

The rehabilitation works involved the entire 4,500 meters reconstruction of the central strip of the runway, all associated taxiways and graded safety strips. More than 295,000 tons of special mix asphalt and 125,000 tons of concrete have been placed on site since the start of the works to date.

Over 4,230 fully addressable state-of-the-art LED Airfield Lighting (AFL) has been upgraded and reinstalled.

In addition, the latest technology in the Navigational Aid and the Meteorological Equipment (MET) systems were installed to improve the safety and increase the operational capacity of the North Runway.

Upon completion of the North Runway Rehabilitation project, the airfield at DXB will allow for continuous air traffic growth for a significant number of years to come. The aforementioned growth constitutes a fundamental objective in Dubai’s strategy of being a world-class tourism destination and a logistics hub.