Dubai Airports has partially opened an Airbus A380 facility at Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport.

Four of Concourse A's 20 contact gates were put into operation on 2 January. The concourse is specifically designed to handle A380 aircraft.

"We are opening Concourse A in stages, with more gates coming online in each successive phase," says Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports.

Dubai International Airport's annual passenger capacity will increase from 60 million to 75 million when Concourse A is fully operational. The airport expects traffic for 2012 to hit 57 million.

Concourse A is part of the airport's Terminal 3 complex, which is built exclusively for Emirates.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news