Fly into Old Dubai Airport 1971
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The Old "New" Dubai Airport
Costain Civil Engineering, Ltd., of London was awarded the $10 million construction contract. The new Terminal opened in 1971. The Airport Terminal DesignThe new Dubai International Terminal was ahead-of-its-time in providing passenger facilities to handle modern jumbo aircraft. Restaurants and kitchens serving 400, free-zone shopping area and sleeping accommodations for stranded travelers were provided plus the ground services and refueling were also extensive. The Terminal did not use the traditional decorative motifs but employed a visually open and vaulted structure to create an arabesque quality. 56 lightweight, insulated "umbrella" units of glass-reinforced plastic framed by steel supported on reinforced concrete columns formed the roof. The dome over the VIP lounge is also reinforced plastic. Dubai's First FlyoverArrival and Departures were handled on the second level of the three-level terminal on an elevated roadway. Road traffic accessed the Terminal via a flyover (the first in the UAE) from the main road with open air car parking at ground level. Passengers access from the Terminal to the aircraft was by spiral ramps. The ramps were shaded from the sun but the passengers still exposed to the heat and humidity. SkyJacking comes to DubaiSecurity was not high on the list of Airport Terminal design requirements in the late 1960s. It proved remarkably easy for HiJackers to break through Dubai Airport Security perimeter and access aircraft on the tarmac. There were around five such incidents. The good news was these hi-jackings gave Dubai worldwide publicity. The New Dubai Airport Terminal Version2The first "New" Airport Terminal quickly proved to be too small to cope with Dubai growing passenger traffic. The Terminal underwent at least two major developments before the decision was made to build a totally new Dubai International Airport   |
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At
the end of the 1960s Dubai was a small (100,000
population) but ambitious City State. Old Dubai
Airport was inadequate to meet Dubai's growing
needs. The Ruler Sheikh Rashid
bin Saeed Al Maktoum commissioned Architects
Page and Broughton to design a Terminal
that could meet projected
air-transport but, more importantly,
persuade international airlines to use Dubai
as a Hub and Transit Airport.