Dubai eyes funds for airport expansion

Dubai is examining ways of raising finances to expand its aviation infrastructure, a plan focused on its existing airport as it goes slow on a $34 billion (Dh124.8 billion) new facility designed to become the biggest in the world. The emirate is in talks with external consultants to come up with a structure to access the financial market, Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths said. "They are going to come up with a structure that will enable us to access the financial market in the most cost-effective way, which we've not been able to do as a purely government-owned department," he said. Ambitions to become a pre-eminent traffic and cargo hub are at the centre of Dubai's growth plans. Its existing airport serves over 50 million passengers a year, and the massive new Al Maktoum airport is designed to cater to 160 million as Dubai attempts to leverage its position at the crossroads of air corridors between continents. Griffiths, a former chief executive of Gatwick Airport, said that the world was a "very challenging place" at the moment to raise finances, but believed that Dubai Airports' record on growth and its firm expansion plans would help. "I'd imagine we're in a fairly good place as a blue-chip utility if we were in a structure that would enable us direct access into the market." He declined to give details on the plans. "All options are in consideration. Obviously, some options are a step, others are a giant leap," he said. The new Al Maktoum airport was originally due to open for passenger traffic in March last year but testing is likely to continue to the middle or end of 2012.