Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, will move its operations to the city-state’s second, sprawling airfield in its southern desert reaches “within the next 10 years” in a project worth nearly $35 billion, its ruler said Sunday.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s announcement marks the latest chapter in the rebound of its long-haul carrier Emirates after the coronavirus pandemic grounded international travel. Plans have been on the books for years to move the operations of the airport known as DXB to Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central which had also been delayed by the repercussions of the sheikhdom’s 2009 economic crisis.
Is five runways necessary? My searching around shows that airports like Heathrow and La Guardia don’t have that many runways.
I don’t know about La Guardia but Heathrow is definitely at its capacity limit due to only having two runways.
Their current one has 2, so if they have the space and money, and needed the 2 parallel runways so far, it makes total sense.
Multiple runways in an airport are only partly for volume reasons. Usually only the runways pointing the same way are in use at any given time, they use the ones that give you the best headwind and / or the least crosswind to land for safety.
One airport near me is near a village of a few hundred, is not even paved, but has and uses 3 runways. They are in a triangle shape, so people can pick the best one to use at any given time.
The point is the primary reason for having more than one runway is how much the wind varies in one location, and how strong it usually is, and capacity to land multiple planes is secondary.
That does not mean that they don’t use intersecting runways if it is easier though, I’ve just checked La Guardia on LiveATC, they are using 04 for departures and 13 for arrivals right now. If you are interested, you can listen to the airport information service that pilots use on there.
ATL has 5. DEN has 6. DFW has 7. O’Hare has 8.
LaGuardia has 2, but they have a whole second international airport only 10 miles away. JFK has 4.
I guess I just happened to look up the ones that had fewer. Oops. Thanks.
Heathrow also has another five international commercial airports in the city region (all of which only have one runway, but one of those was until recently the busiest single-runway airport in the world).
Gatwick, City, Luton, Stansted and Southend, although the last of those is arguable. It calls itself London Southend so I’m keeping it.