Dubai Airports will reopen Terminal 1 on June 24 at its main Dubai International hub and the operator plans to hire about 3,500 staff to accommodate the expected surge in traffic in the coming months, its chief executive said.
About 66 airlines will gradually shift their operations to the terminal, the airport’s main hub for foreign airlines, from Terminals 2 and 3 once it opens, Paul Griffiths said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
“We have school holidays coming up and we have a major Eid holiday here in the UAE,” Mr Griffiths said.
“Looking forward to the Expo and various other events … and the fact that the UAE throughout the pandemic has remained open to so many countries around the world, we are anticipating a huge surge in inbound and outbound traffic over the next few months.”
Terminal 1 has been closed for the past 15 months owing to the pandemic, which has severely disrupted the global travel industry.
Its reopening will give the operator the ability to handle another 18 million passengers, Mr Griffiths said.
Dubai International Airport is the home base for Emirates, the world’s largest long-haul airline.
The airport handled 25.9 million passengers in 2020, a 70 per cent drop on 2019, but the travel and tourism industry is bouncing back.
Mr Griffiths expects the global aviation hub to be back close to 90 per cent of its pre-pandemic capacity.
Last week, Emirates said it plans to restore 90 per cent of its passenger network by end of July. The carrier is also resuming flights to India, South Africa and Nigeria from June 23, subject to strict new travel protocol. The move follows guidelines announced on Saturday by Dubai’s Supreme Committee of Crisis and Disaster Management regarding travel to these countries.
“Dubai’s aviation sector has been at the forefront of a global campaign to restore vital international air services with the opening of quarantine-free travel corridors between the UAE and multiple countries around the world,” Dubai Airports chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed said in a statement released by Dubai Media Office.
The aviation industry is among the sectors worst affected by the economic impact of the pandemic. Airport operators and airlines were forced to cut costs and lay off employees and defer aircraft deliveries, and many sought government bailouts.
But with travel demand rebounding, Dubai Airports expects to bring 3,500 jobs back, Mr Griffiths said.
“It is going to be more jobs for Dubai,” he said. “We are going to be hiring people, bringing back handling agents. Airlines clearly will be doing that [as well].”
The global aviation “outlook is looking positive”, with the EU looking at introducing vaccine passports and positive signs from the US with regards to travelling to the EU, he said.
“Cautious opening up of South Africa, Nigeria and India clearly will open some transfer flows [for Dubai hub] … as we retain our crown of the world’s busiest airport,” Mr Griffiths said.
Still, he said Britain continues to struggle with the Delta variant of the virus and it was unlikely that the UAE would be removed from the UK’s red list this month.
“We heard the news over the weekend from the UK, particularly [about] the Delta variant [ and that] is not encouraging. So I’m not sure we are going to see an announcement from the UK [about] opening up,” he said.
