Dubai's aviation oasis

(CNN) -- In a city strewn with scaffolding, it's a project with no equal. Dubai World Central is set to be a bustling metropolis 40 kilometers south of Dubai's city center, with homes, offices and a port no less, surrounding the jewel in the crown -- the world's largest airport.

Work on the first runway has already finished, and in record time for a stretch of tarmac sturdy enough to take the width and weight of the world's biggest airliner, the A380.

Five more runways will follow, allowing four planes to land simultaneously 24 hours a day.

The airport -- recently named Al Maktoum International -- will have enough space for 120 million passengers.

That's almost 50 percent more than Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, currently the world's busiest passenger hub.

But it's much more than just an airport. The size of the entire Dubai World Central project is best appreciated by comparisons. At 140 square kilometers, the construction site is twice the size of Hong Kong Island. When finished, more than 750,000 people will live and work there -- almost as many as the Swedish capital, Stockholm.

Arguably, only in the Middle East is there enough land for a project of such immense scale. And years of rising oil prices have ensured there's enough money to bring such a lofty vision alive.

"Dubai is almost literally creating this out of the sand," says Murdo Morrison, editor of aviation magazine Flight International.

"They've just got a huge expansive territory that they can build a huge airport on. The problem for them is then making sure that demand is created in order for them to make this work as a business."

Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saaed Al Maktoum has no doubt the demand is there.

As Chairman of Dubai's Department of Civil Aviation and Chairman of the Emirates Group, he has a cockpit view of the inadequacies of Dubai's current international airport.

"Today the maximum passengers we can handle here is 75 million and we should be reaching that number in the next six, seven, eight years," he says.

"We have a double-digit growth every year so for the future we need an airport that won't be able to limit the airline."

Emirates Airlines is itself investing in the future. At the 2007 Dubai Airshow, it placed a record $35 billion order for 143 planes.

Sheikh Ahmed is confident Dubai will succeed in emulating other leading international hubs.

"We are lucky you know to be in the middle of the globe I mean east, west, south, and north," Sheikh Ahmed says.

"We can capture that traffic and make sure it doesn't over pass us so they end up here staying in Dubai, at least even for a while."

Dubai's not only aiming to be number one in terms of passenger numbers. It's also aiming to please.

In October, Dubai Airports appointed its first ever Chief Executive Officer.

Paul Griffiths is tasked with ensuring growth doesn't come at the expense of the airport's smooth operations, or customer service.

As the former Managing Director of London Gatwick he's used to dealing with rapid growth in relatively cramped conditions.

"What we've go to do is make sure growth is very much on the agenda, as well as customer service and really try to make the most of this airport before the new one opens," he says.

Griffiths is confident Dubai can become a leading transport hub.

"I think the future of air travel here is pretty assured. There aren't many countries in the world that are taking such a proactive stance and developing infrastructure ahead of growth."

"Most airports in the world are playing catch up the whole time and congestion and terrible passenger service are unfortunately what people have come to accept," he says.

"We want to do it differently here. We want to make the passenger experience second to none. So it will be number one in terms of capacity and number one in terms of service."

Murdo Morrison of Flight International, says based on Dubai's track record, its ambition is anything but pie in the sky.

"I think if you look at the record of Dubai and the rest of the Gulf States, they've made incredibly ambitious statements of where they want to be in a view years," he says.

"But the record on delivering these is incredible as well. And I've got every confidence that Dubai will be able to do this. They're ideally placed geographically as a crossroads to the world in order to exploit the growing traffic between the east and the west."

Meanwhile, work continues apace to have the airport sufficiently finished to stage the Dubai Airshow in 2009.

There's a long road ahead. The schedule runs to 2050, when the Commercial City, Residential City and Enterprise Park are due to be finished.

If the first runway is anything to go by, the rest of the development should go to plan, and the schedule to time.

Build it and Dubai is sure people will come. E-mail to a friend

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