The first passengers will pass through Dubai World Central - Al Maktoum Airport (DWC) by March of next year, according to the CEO of Dubai Airports.

“We are scheduled to bring it online for passengers by the start of the summer season, which is the beginning of March 2011,” Paul Griffiths said yesterday.

He added that the new airport is on track to cater for cargo flights from June 27 this year.

Griffiths said no carriers had yet signed up to move to the new airport but he insisted that no airlines would be forced to make the switch either.

He said Dubai Airports was working to offer some incentives for airlines to make the move and that it is close to signing deals.

When asked if he thought Dubai can sustain the demand for a second airport and on the scale of DWC, he said that passenger numbers have spoken for themselves.

“This is not a real-estate play. There is a real demand for operational capacity related to directly to the growth of aviation,” he said.

Griffiths predicted that Dubai would see close to 100 million passengers pass through its airports by 2020 and 150 million by 2030.

Dubai International Airport saw a five per cent increase in passengers in the first quarter this year, as well as an increase of 26.4 per cent in freight cargo.

“They say that at the cusp of a recession cargo numbers are hit and when the world begins to recover the first indicator is cargo numbers.

If you need a positive indicator that the economy is really starting to thrive and grow in this region, that cargo statistic... is a very considerable one,” Griffiths added.