I had to go to Dubai for a day and got to experience Dubai Airport’s Terminal 3 for the very first time and I’m impressed. The terminal is huge, but not in the regular sense more like palace kinda huge. Lot’s of high ceilings and very large empty spaces. When I arrived to the airport it was empty with barely any passengers which I thought was cool. Can’t wait until our new airport gets completed. Below is a video I shot of their check in area (the left half, there is another similar area on the opposite side) showing how big and empty it was.
[YouTube]
Picture taken by Patrick
22 replies on “Dubai Airport – Terminal 3”
7 to 10 years then we can start comparing I guess
For quick, short trips to Dubai I prefer terminal 2 (Fly Dubai). It’s small and boring, but you get in and out of there in a heartbeat, and it’s easy to get a cab.
Fly Dubai is absolutely horrible and so is their terminal. I’d rather pay double price than go through that again.
Totally agree with you on this one – never again!!!
I’m glad people share the same sentiments about Fly Dubai. Possibly the worst airline and customer service I’ve witnessed. I’ve traveled with them twice, and had trouble every trip with going to Dubai and coming back.
@Buzz Not a rent a car. The Emiritis were smart and islolated the small low-budget carriers (some I have never heard of) to this terminal. It is the most disorganized terminal in the UAE. To return a rent-a-car is difficult and the e-gate machines seem to work sporatically. FLY DUBAI is a well-organized low-budget carrier, one of the best in the region.
What was so difficult about returning the car? I tried this airport twice and I just parked the rental car across the street and I was out of there in record time. This is definitely a no-frills, but stress-free, terminal. Unlike T1 and T3, its not a mini-mall and you don’t walk forever just to get to your gate. Wouldn’t mind using T2 again.
for the record, even when its a peak time and the airport is packed,it still feels like that. Its always calm,clean and relatively empty. I love it!
T3 @ DXB was designed to handle (14 in-service + 76 in-order) A380, in addition to the huge fleet of Emirates airlines. There is also a T4 under construction for Flydubai.
Patrick, you need to get out more. T3 has been operational for awhile now and check out the business class lounge. The Emiriti government built T3 with the utmost consideration to address customer needs. If you have pictures of the Kuwait Airport constuction, can you please post them on this site? Some of us doubt that they have even broken ground yet. Someone, just someone in this country needs to address the basic needs of this nation, for this nation, and the beginning of Kuwait’s development process is a new airport. It would be advantageous for them to build a business class/first class lounge like Qatar to move some of the passenger numbers to this terminal whilst the airport is being completed. Plan people plan!
Patrick? You mean Mark. I am aware T3 has been open for a while now but I never travel Emirates.
Hmmm..I thought Patrick was your alter ego. Qatar Airways (QA) has priced their fares above Emirates now, so to do long distance flights, many of us our opting to fly Emirates now, although QA service is very good. You did say in previous posts that you take QA sometimes. You failed to state that Emirates Airways was ‘awarded’ their own separate business class lounge at KIA. I had spoken to reliable sources that they were in talks to take Sheikh Saad Terminal, I wonder if that fell through and they had to suffice with a separate lounge? I hope Wataniya does come back, because they really raised the bar, as far as, the Kuwait airline business goes and I miss my stress-free exits out of Kuwait to Dubai. KIA is a nightmare which I cringe every time I have to mull through it. Did they open Potbellys in the airport yet? Why don’t you do a review?
I don’t understand what you meant by I failed to state that Emirates Airways have their on their business class lounge. Who cares if they have their own lounge or not, this wasn’t an airport review.
Potbelly hasn’t opened at the airport yet and I’m not sure if you noticed but I don’t do food reviews anymore not until I win my lawsuit.
No food reviews?? That’s why I stopped passing by LOL .. j/k
You’ve uncovered his secret. Mark is a mild mannered blogger by day and by night he’s Patrick the gaming demon.
hahaha! Epic.
I fly from KWI to DXB to ATL to TPA to get home and use the same route back. I love going thru DXB on the way back here. I end up staying overnight in the airport hotel and fly out first flight the next morning. Helps with jetlag.
Nice airport. Nice business lounges(there are 2 of them). Nice hotel.
Lots* instead of lot’s..very tiny typo š
DXB T3 is huge….
business class lounge rocks…. never seen anything like it…
if you have a short connection flight for onward destination then its a long long long walk to go to the gate of your next flight
my flight to dxb was at gate 138 and the next flight to amd was at gate 217.
was a long long long walk.
It’s one of my favorite terminals , and I’ve been around
T3 is exclusive to Emirates, hence the ‘lower’ crowds. Passport control is a delight compared to T1, although check-in can sometimes be lengthy. T2 is a mixed bag, but always colorful!
I live in Dubai, six years EK gold card holder and I HATE T3 and hate even more the awful awful cattle station T3 Emirates business class lounge, which, other than between 10:30 and 13:00, is always too crowded. Poorly planned as usual… Other airlines have multiple lounges at their main hubs, so you are never too far from your gate, but not Emirates (other than having to keep the old lounge going in T1 for silver card holders). This means wasting time walking deep into the lounge searching for seating and then wasting more time fighting your way back out. Several smaller lounges would have been a much better solution. The lounge serves exactly the same food every single day (depending on the time of day) which gets very tiresome if you use it a lot. Critically it is massively under-supplied with toilets and they clean them all at the SAME TIME!!! Seriously, to those commenters who like it, I have to ask what is it you really like about it? I realise that there will always be crowding issues at home hubs (Etihad have an even more severe lounge problem at AD) but other airlines plan and accommodate this better, even the dinosaurs like BA and AF. By contrast, at other (“away”) airports where Emirates have their own lounge (unlike Kuwait) it tends to be really nice (though the prize goes to Etihad Heathrow lounge where you basically have to fight off the supermodel attendants constantly offering you food and drink and endless tempting goodies).
T3 itself is just a huge long tube lined with massively over-priced duty-free shops (seriously, if you are tempted to buy anything really check the prices carefully). When departing, this means invariably a long walk to the gate (especially if it’s a bus trip from a T1 gate) dodging around hordes of wandering clueless shoppers overloaded with bags. On arrival into T3 you frequently have to endure a freezing 20 minute bus ride or, if you do berth at the terminal, a 20 minute walk. At least e-gate now works most of the time but if you arrive between 01:00 and 06:00 you may have a horrendous wait at immigration. If you want a well designed airport, try Changi or Chek Lap Kok or even, dare I say it, Heathrow T5. Dubai T3 is a horror on a par with JFK, Gatwick or CDG1. I guess it’s like how EK have the worst business class seats (7 across on their dominant aircraft, the 777 – more than any other carrier, even the yanks) and mediocre service (even on the A380 it takes an hour to get a drink after take-off) yet somehow have this super-premium image. Reviews on Skytrax tell the real story though….