Dubai's airport to become world's biggest, while UAE airports booms

The UAE has experienced a decade of relentless aviation growth. Separated by less than 120 km, the three largest airports in the country at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have seen their traffic driven by their home carriers, Emirates, flydubai, Etihad and Air Arabia, each of which handles the majority of passengers passing through the airports.

This year could see the three airports reach a combined 80 million passenger throughput...UAE airports are fast approaching the total airport traffic of New York City's system, stagnating at a little above 100 million passengers annually.

Leading the local growth is Dubai International Airport (DIA)...on its way to becoming the world’s largest airport for international passenger traffic. Traffic at DIA for the first nine months of 2012 reached 42.6 million passengers – almost exclusively international – an increase of 13.4% year-on-year.