Runway Closure at Dubai Airport (DXB) – All You Need to Know

Dubai International Airport (DXB) will close its southern runway from April 16 to May 30 while it undergoes extensive upgrade work. The runway is nearing the end of its design life and requires a complete upgrade.

As only one runway – the northern runway – will be in use during this time, airlines will have to scale back their operations at DXB.

The upgrade work will commence on April 16, 2019 and end on May 30, 2019 i.e. 45 days.

Flights Affected Due to Runway Closure

Here is an exhaustive list of affected flights

Emirates

All Emirates operated flights will continue on DXB airport. Note that this excludes codeshare flights e.g. flydubai.

Up to 48 Emirates aircraft will not be utilized during the 45 day closure. Thus means a 25% reduction in the overall number of flights.

Note that Emirates has not put up a list of all affected flights. Instead, you can check your flight status on their website. If you had a booking that was affected, it is extremely likely that Emirates would have reached out to you anyway.

If you want to check out an indicative list of cancelled flights, refer to The Points Habibi who has done some excellent work.

flydubai

Flydubai will operate flights to 39 of its destinations from Dubai World Central (DWC), also known as Al Maktoum International Airport. DWC is located in Jebel Ali, about 60km from DXB. Travel time is 45 minutes to an hour.

Destinations that will operated from DWC

Addis Ababa, Abha, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Colombo, Cochin, Delhi, Gassim, Gizan, Ha’il, Hyderabad, Isfahan, Karachi, Lucknow, Lar, Faisalabad, Chennai, Medinah, Mashhad, Multan, Najaf, Riyadh, Istanbul, Sialkot, Shiraz, Ta’if, Thiruvananthapuram, and Tabuk.

Destinations that will operated from DXB and DWC

Bahrain, Beirut, Dammam, Alexandria, Jeddah, Kabul, Khartoum, Kuwait, and Muscat.

Flights to all other Flydubai destinations will continue to operate from DXB.

Because of codeshare agreement between Emirates and flydubai, you may have to change airports if you are transiting through Dubai. There will be free shuttles between the airports. However, if you feel transit time is not enough, please reach out to your airline.

Other airlines that will operate from DWC

Azur Air, Belavia, Eurowings, FlyNas, Nepal Airlines, Nordwind Airlines, Ukraine International Airlines, Ural Airlines and Wizz Air

Airlines that will operate from both DWC and DXB

Aeroflot, Gulf Air, Indigo, Kuwait Airways and SpiceJet

Airlines that will continue to operate from DXB (No change)

Air France, Air India (some flights changed to Sharjah), British Airways, Cebu Pacific, Egypt Air, Ethiopian, Kenya Airways, KLM, Oman Air, Pegasus, Qeshm Air, Salam Air, Saudia, Singapore Airlines, Somon Air, Swiss, Turkish Airlines and Turkmenistan

Airlines that will operate from Sharjah

Air India

Commuting Between DXB and DWC

Dubai government is trying to make it easier and cheaper for you to commute between DXB and DWC airports.

Bus

Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) will operate free shuttle buses between DXB and DWC airports during the runway closure. The buses will operate every 30 min.

Additionally, there will be buses from major stops in Dubai city to DWC.

Taxi

The minimum rate for designated taxis at DWC has been reduced to AED 5 (from AED 20). Further, shared taxis have been introduced to reduce commuting costs.

Ride-hailing

Careem (now acquired by Uber) is giving 25% discount on travel from DWC airport. You need to use the code “FLYDWC”

Cars

You can get free parking at DWC airport (capacity 2,500).