Dubai Airport Terminal 3

Dubai's Airport's brand new Terminal 3

The Terminal is designed to handle 43 million passengers a year when fully operational.The terminal is being opened in phases and the first phase will have flights arriving and departing to destinations in the GCC namely Doha, Muscat, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jeddah, Dammam and Riyadh.

It will also include flights to and from the Americas, including New York, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Toronto.The second phase will open flights to the Middle East and Africa.

The baggage handling system at the new Dubai terminal is one of the largest in the world, Dubai Airports said.There are many self check-in portals available.

Dubai's new Terminal 3 is the complete opposite of its cramped, older counterpart up the road.At one million square metres of space, the facility is nearly double the size of Heathrow's new terminal.

Europe, the Indian Subcontinent, the Far East and Australia will be serviced in later phases.The non-traditional check-in areas have plenty of room to accomodate long queues.

Terminal 3 and its airside facilities at Dubai International will boost the capacity of the airport to an annual figure of over 60 million passengers.Media briefed a special tour of the airport

Light and space dominates the Terminal's interior as well.Even from the outside the new terminal is visually pleasing.

One of the waiting area's in the terminal.Light, spacious, easy to navigate - the Terminal redeems all of it's counterparts flaws.

Terminal 3 has five gates to handle the A380 superjumbo.The swanky waiting lounges are seen in this shot.

The interior of the Terminal is wide and spacious, with abundant waiting areas.

The facility is part of a part of $4.5-billion expansion plan.Emirates is expected to eventually shift its operations to the new terminal and other facilities.

This walkway demonstrates the light-driven interior design.The new Terminal is shoppers' paradise with its large Duty Free area.

Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline and George Horan, Deputy Managing Director of Dubai Duty Free met with members of the media during a tour through the Terminal 3.The Terminal is exclusively for Emirates flights.

The new terminal, which is underground, will also ease the congestion at the older Terminal 1.Terminal 3 will increase DIA's overall passenger handling capacity to 60 million.

The first Emirates flight EK843 Dubai-Doha, an Airbus A330-200 with 136 passengers, four in
First, 27 in Business and 105 in Economy Class was flagged off from Gate flagged off from Gate

213, on time at 2.15 pm.