DUBAI: Dubai’s flagship airline Emirates is expected to move all of its operations to the emirate’s new Al-Maktoum International Airport after 2020, a senior executive at Al-Maktoum said.

“Emirates have to move to the new airport at some point. They will move some time after 2020, when we have the capacity to accommodate them,” Khalifa Al-Zaffin, executive chairman of Dubai Aviation City Corp, which built the Dubai World Central logistics complex housing the new airport, said.

Al-Zaffin, speaking on the sidelines of a conference organized by business information firm MEED, added that phase one of the expansion of Al-Maktoum would be completed by 2020, when the airport would be able to handle 130 million passengers.

Emirates currently operates from Dubai International; it includes a terminal dedicated to Airbus A380 superjumbos.

“Any decision to move Emirates’ current operations from DXB to DWC is one for the Dubai government to make,” an Emirates spokesman said in response to the comments by Al-Zaffin.

Al-Maktoum can currently handle up to 7 million passengers a year and is being expanded to eventually accommodate over 160 million. Dubai International’s current capacity is 75 million.