Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths maintains 50,000 new jobs will be supported by the aviation sector by the year 2020, with the sector’s contribution rising another $8 billion (Dh29.4bn) from last year’s $22bn.
Currently, aviation supports 250,000 jobs or 19 per cent of the total employment in Dubai, accounting for 28 per cent of the emirate’s GDP.
Speaking at the ongoing Arabian Travel Market at Dubai World Trade Centre, Griffiths also dismissed recent news report that highlighted Emirates won’t be asked to shift operations to Dubai World Central until 2024, based on a study.
The document, obtained by Bloomberg, also indicated that flydubai would shift operations to DWC next year, with the option to move back to Dubai International in a decade.
Griffiths said: “This document in question is not official and out of date in terms of thinking. It’s not accurate and was never meant to be shared.
“The second stage of DWC is to target 200 million passengers and if the goal is to move Emirates hub by early 2020s, there are many days to get to that solution, which will not affect the carrier’s expansion plans.”
He further added: “However, [Emirates President] Tim Clark has said this earlier and we have discussed it at length also that splitting the Emirates hub is not an option.”
Emirates had earlier stated it plans to target 70m passengers by 2020.
In reference to flydubai’s move to DWC, Griffiths said: “Passenger constraints at Dubai International will continue to impact airlines in their growth. Once that happens, airlines will be looking at other options. DWC provides one to carriers such as flydubai.
“Currently, due to the 80-day runway closure, flydubai is operating a few flights from DWC. I am hoping they like the operation so much they choose to move.”
Griffiths added that the runway closure until July 20 at Dubai International has caused a 26 per cent reduction in flight operations, with the immediate impact on DWC seeing an increase to 600 flights from 80 or to 18 airlines from the initial six.
Quantifying last year’s annual growth at 16 per cent, Griffiths said that aviation revenue will surge to $30bn (Dh110bn) by 2020, supporting 300,000 jobs, or 50,000 more than the 250,000 jobs it supports at present.