Dubai Airports is considering the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technology at Al Maktoum International Airport, which will allow it to reallocate gates to minimize walking distances and help passengers navigate the vastness of the new airport, according to its chief executive.
Paul Griffiths stated that the airport will be capable of many future advancements due to new modern technologies, which are not feasible today.
“Everyone keeps saying that artificial intelligence will replace jobs, and we will be interacting with bots. But people want to feel that human emotion and connection. The idea of the technology is to eliminate all the things we don’t like about airports while retaining the elements we enjoy, such as dwell spaces, lounges, and hospitality,” Griffiths explained during a panel discussion at the Dubai City Briefing, organized by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism.
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“The whole ethos of what we’re doing today will be dramatically different from the airport experience. The great thing is that the technology in the background can do amazing things that we can’t do today,” he added.
Reallocating of gates
Citing an example, he mentioned that the airport currently has to allocate fixed gates to aircraft. “But if you can analyze using AI, we can reallocate all the gates of inbound aircraft and can minimize the walking distance and connecting time between flights on a dynamic basis. That is going to be advantageous in terms of customer service and overcoming the vastness of the new airports.”
The Dubai government earlier announced that the entire operations of Dubai International Airport will be relocated to Al Maktoum International Airport in 2032, making it the world’s largest international airport, serving over 260 million passengers annually once it is fully completed.
Dubai Airports aims to implement the latest available technologies across all touch points before the opening of Al Maktoum International Airport. This will integrate the most modern tools and allow for handling more passengers and aircraft, and a faster turnaround period for flights.
Spread over 70 square kilometers, Al Maktoum Airport will feature five parallel runways and over 400 aircraft gates, reflecting the magnitude of the airport.
The decision to relocate operations to Al Maktoum comes as Dubai International Airport (DXB) is reaching full capacity. It is expected to reach the 100-million passenger mark within one and a half years. With hundreds of aircraft set to be added to Emirates and flydubai fleets over the coming decade, Dubai requires a much larger airport.
Hospitality environment
Paul Griffiths added that technology is advancing rapidly, and they want to place customers at the very heart of the entire airport and airline experience.
“The challenge for the next few years is how you keep your growth going at DXB (Dubai International Airport), because like squeezing a lemon, the first 85 percent of the juice is the easy part, but getting that final 15 percent is a challenge,” he said, adding that the goal is to eliminate all those cumbersome processes that airport operators have imposed on their customers for so long.
“You can take away check-in, baggage handling, security, and immigration, putting them in the background so our customers don’t have to wait in queues. They can just enter the airport and instantly feel they’re in a hospitality environment. That’s the whole idea. It is not only beneficial for our customers and the experience they get, but it’s great for our business,” he added.
“New technology will really make DWC (Dubai World Central) something that we can all be very proud of as an industry, as a city, and as a community,” he concluded.
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