Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport opens. Wow?

by Abha Malpani on

The exclusive Emirates Airline terminal of Dubai International Airport opened its doors yesterday. The airline projects catering to 40 million passengers annually, so an exclusive terminal was a necessity.

With all the crazy developments in Dubai over the last few years, each one outdoing the other, it’s hard to maintain wow factor. Nevertheless, the new airport wing has been fussed about a lot, so here are the details.

According to an article in Gulf News’s Xpress: At a price of $4.5 billion, the terminal has taken 10 million cubic meters of soil (enough to fill 4,000 swimming pools), 33,000 tonnes of structural steel, and 450 tonnes of reinforcement to put the terminal together. It has 157 lifts, 97 escalators, 82 moving walkways and 27 truck lifts and eight “Sky Trains” that can handle 47 people each. Also, 8000 square meters of retail space has been added to the already existing 7000 square meters of the Dubai Duty Free shopping area.

This is the first phase of the 4-phase terminal that begins by operating 40 flights a day. When phase 4 opens in 2011, 269 flights are expected to depart from this terminal daily.

It has 30 self-check-in counters alongside 126 traditional check-in stations. Rumor is that you will even be able to check in from the terminal’s car park!

Dubai International Airport currently handles 40 million passengers a year; this new terminal increases its capacity enough to accommodate the movement of another 20 million passengers annually.

Gulf News has done a video walk through of this new wing which you can see here. You will not be surprised to see that it looks more like a high-tech 5-star hotel.

Another first for Dubai: World’s tallest LED screen

by Jeffrey White on

Is Dubai getting a little too predictable in its quest to be city with the most bragging rights?

Jaunted thinks so. It greets Dubai’s latest accomplishment with a big yawn.

Dubai recently announced that it is building the world’s biggest LED screen, which is being designed to cover one side of a 33-story building. No word, however, on when it will be unveiled or how much this pointless undertaking is going to cost.

A firm named Dactronics is behind the screen, and is reportedly designing it so that light will still be able to penetrate that side of the building.

So, the screen will take its place in Dubai next to the world’s tallest building (whenever that is completed), the world’s most expensive hotel, the world’s only man-made archipelago, the world’s…

What happens in Dubai stays in Dubai (Dubai’s jails, that is)

by Jerry Guo on

Just read an interesting dispatch from Britain’s The Observer on the recent jailings of expats in Dubai. We’ve covered Poppy-gate and other unfortunate brushes with the law in Dubai, but this article really gives you a clear picture of the two worlds in this emirate: the intolerant Islamic society backed by Sharia law and the Wild West of Britain (and plenty of other nations looking to capitalize on the Middle East).

Surprisingly, what many of us do not hear about are the quintessential subdivisions and shopping malls that seem to be lifted straight out of Middle America. Granted, there are plenty of weird and awesome hotels down the block. I’ve been thinking about moving to Dubai for a year or two–seems like a good jumping off point to the Middle East–but given the unfortunate legal tangles recently, maybe I should reconsider?

Galley Gossip: The people you meet, the places you want to go – Portugal, Greece, Hong Kong, Croatia, and Dubai

by Heather Poole on

Though I have no idea when it will actually happen, I can’t decide where to travel on my next big vacation…

  • Greece
  • Hong Kong
  • Croatia
  • Dubai

That’s been my list of dream places to go for the last few years. But now I’ve got a new place to add to the list, a list that just keeps growing.

  • Portugal

Man oh man, the people you meet, the places you want to go…

Alice, my hairdresser is from Portugal, and that’s what we talk about every time I see her, which is at least once a month. It was the morning of my Las Vegas trip, and while Alice worked her magic on my hair, I sat in front of the mirror on a swiveling chair catching up on the latest travel magazines that customers before me had left behind. Of course whenever I see Alice I can’t help but talk travel while flipping through all those amazing photographs of beautiful places all around the world.

While reading an interesting article about a little town in Croatia, Alice said, “You’ve got to go to Portugal. It’s beautiful.” She had just returned from a two week vacation that very week, which explained the dark tan and the honey colored streaks in her auburn hair.

Placing a copy of Travel and Leisure on my lap, I listened as she described Vilamoura, the village by the sea where she grew up, where she had just visited, and as she described the fresh food, seafood of course, I decided right then and there I wanted to go. Soon. If you’d been there with me you’d want to go too! When my curly hair had been straightened as straight as it could get, I went home, got on the computer, and started googling Portugal.

Alice was right. Portugal is beautiful. I do want to go. But with so many places to go, and not enough time to actually go, how does one decide which place to go – first?

Greece has been on my list for as long as I can remember. So long, in fact, I can’t even remember how or why Greece initially made the list in the first place, but there it is, right at the top, where it’s been for years and years now. There’s just something about all those stark white homes against a sea of blue that leaves me yearning for more. Of course the movie Mama Mia only made me realize I need to get there sooner than later.

Hong Kong made the list last year after the husband returned home from a business trip. Initially he didn’t want to go. Complained about having to go. But then, when he finally returned, all he could talk about was going back. “It’s amazing,” he kept saying as he described the buildings and the food and the tailor who eventually shipped him three custom made suits. Then, last month an old friend from an old job contacted me on Facebook to inform me she still worked for the same company, only she was now VP of the company in Hong Kong, ending the email with “Come visit me soon,” prompting the husband to exclaim, “What are we waiting for!”

Croatia made the list five years ago after viewing hundreds of gorgeous photos taken by a young man, a budding photographer, the son of a woman who works for my husband in New York. The photos were beautiful, particularly the ones of the people who lived there – his relatives. “You can stay at one of their houses,” he offered, “While they stay at a hotel.” It was a tempting offer. We came very close to spending our honeymoon in Croatia, but then the war broke out and after 9/11 I was a little nervous about flying too far away from home. We ended up in Mexico. Since then, each and every year, we come THIS CLOSE to going to Croatia, which is really really close, before someone or something inspires us to go elsewhere. Eventually we’ll make it there.

Dubai is the most recent place to make the list. I must admit, the thought of actually traveling for that long of time on an airplane does not sound like a vacation, not to me, not when you work on an airplane for a living. The last thing a flight attendant wants to do is go to the airport, get on an airplane, and be surrounded by passengers on a day off, for any length of time. But I keep meeting passengers who absolutely love Dubai. On my flight to Vegas, the British man sitting in the first row couldn’t stop talking about the airport – the airport! Apparently it’s pretty incredible. And that’s just the airport! And on my flight to Miami, if the passengers weren’t going to Dubai, they were coming back from Dubai, or had just recently been to Dubai. I even shared a cab with a flight attendant who worked for another airline who wanted to quit and become a flight attendant for Emirates, just so he could live in Dubai (and layover in five star hotels.) With all this talk about Dubai, it had to go on the list.

There are so many great places to travel and I can’t decide where to go. Perhaps you, dear reader, can help. Please! Have you been to Dubai, Croatia, Hong Kong, Greece, or Portugal? If so, take the poll below, and don’t forget to add a comment. Tell me why you love the place you choose, and make sure to share all your favorite things to do and see. I’m dying to know.

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Is there hope for Dubai’s traffic problem?

by Abha Malpani on

Other than my occasional rant here at Gadling, we almost always talk about Dubai’s mind-blowing developments. As much as I think that Dubai’s growth, development, and all-round vision is extraordinary, I can’t help but wonder: how, in this extended planning phase, authorities forgot to include the development of public transport.

Other than a poor bus system, the 2.2 million residents of Dubai depend on their cars and taxis to get from one point to another. The result? Dreadful and excruciating traffic jams at peak hours.

Dubai has already begun constructing a fully-automated under-and-above ground metro system (which at the moment has worsened the traffic situation because of the dug-up roads), but until then, their solution to the horrendous traffic problem is the addition of automatic toll gates (called Salik) on main roads across the city, that charge $1.10 (Dhs.4) every time you drive through them. This system started last year, and this month, phase two of the Salik system has begun. The hope is that this will reduce the traffic on certain roads at certain times, but this picture shows what is happening instead.*New addition: Seems like this is actually Moscow, not Dubai, as pointed out by nzm in the comments. Oops. However, this could totally be Dubai, as also pointed out by nzm.)

Yes, yikes.

Along with the increased cost of living in Dubai, Salik will certainly be pinching many pockets, however, the long term plan makes sense. The way the system works, you can be charged up to $6.5 (Dhs.24) a day passing through these gates. This way, the Dubai RTA plans to generate about $11 billion over a 3 year period, with which 500km of roads will be constructed, and traffic will flow freely again. I really, really hope so, especially because I might be moving back there soon.

[Thanks to BuJassem at UAE Community blog for the picture]