Emirates is spending 700 million dirham ($191 million) to build a new headquarters across from its new terminal at Dubai International Airport.
Terminal 3, which will be dedicated to Emirates, will not be ready to open until the first quarter of 2008 but the new headquarters will be completed within the next few months. Emirates says the nine-storey building will be 200m long and 100m deep, making it “probably the largest building in Dubai”. Along with housing the fast-growing carrier’s administrative offices, the headquarters will have crew-briefing rooms, banks, cafes, restaurants, spas and a fitness centre.
“You’re going to live there,” says Emirates senior vice-president Dubai airport development Ahmed Khoory (pictured). “It’s a family headquarters rather than a business headquarters. You’ll have all the facilities there.”
The building will be more than twice as big as the current Emirates headquarters, which is located only a couple of kilometres from the airport. But the drive from Emirates’ existing terminal to the current headquarters can take more than 30 minutes at peak hours.
Khoory says the new headquarters will be connected to Terminal 3, which is being built underground, by a tunnel, allowing crew to quickly move from briefing rooms to the gate without getting stuck in traffic. He says duty time is now wasted sitting on a bus: “We wanted to have control over their movement. You can’t move them through traffic.”
The headquarters will be located on Airport Road, opposite the current Emirates Engineering centre.
Source: Airline Business
