To keep up with all of this, it's also going to have a 100,000 car parking lot, which will obviously be the world's largest. Yeah, you probably don't want to lose your car there.
The airport is being built in the area known as Jebel Ali, so at first the airport was known as the "Jebel Ali International Airport". In fact, the IATA code for the airport is "JXB", which is kind of cute because Dubai International Airport's code is "DXB". They're like twins.
Twins, however, where one is ten times larger than the other.
I can only guess that's the reason they decided to change the name - all of a sudden last year "Jebel Ali" is out and it's being referred to as the Dubai World Central International Airport. Gots to get the name "Dubai" in there somewhere.
So the first runways are under construction now, opening in a few years and will be fully operational by 2017.
Well the other day we were thrown a curveball. His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai (a/k/a "Sheikh Mo"), issued a decree establishing the Dubai City of Aviation.
That's not really the interesting part. Here in Dubai they love to have cutsie names and logos for everything - Dubai Media City, Dubai Knowledge Village, Dubai Healthcare City, Dubai Heritage Village, Dubai Outsource Zone, Dubai Internet City, Dubai Culture Village, Dubai Cargo Village ... the list is darn near endless. But they don't mean much. They're all pretty much either a physical set of buildings like an industrial park, or a managerial / oversight authority. But with a cutsie name.
Anyway, the interesting part was the third paragraph of this story:
- At the same time, the Jebel Ali International Airport has been renamed the Al Maktoum International Airport.
The Maktoums are the ruling family of Dubai, and have been for almost 175 years - since 1833. Not quite sure which of the family members this is supposted to celebrate. All of them, I guess. Sheikh Mohammad's father was probably the most famous Maktoum - Sheikh Rashid was the man responsible for the transformation of Dubai into the modern metropolis it is today.
Anyway, they have another decade before the airport is complete up and running, who wants to bet they change the name at least one more time?
