Dubai: Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths warned on Monday that a lack of capacity in the skies over the Middle East could slow down growth at Dubai International (DXB).

“Unless we find a way to somehow unlock the capacity that’s linked within the air traffic system, I fear growth could be something which starts to slowdown,” he said, speaking at an air traffic conference in Dubai.

Dubai International, one of the fastest growing airports in the world, overtook London Heathrow in 2014 as the world’s busiest airport for international passengers. But rapidly expanding home carriers, Emirates and flydubai, mean aiport slots are sparse and so capacity needs to be found elsewhere.

“A constraint is the air traffic capacity above us,” Griffiths said.

Half of the Middle East airspace is reserved for military flights despite commercial operators accounting for the majority of flights in the region. Commercial operators have to circumvent with even less than half of the region’s airspace with many carriers deeming flying over parts of Syria, Iraq and Yemen as too dangerous.

Dubai International expects to see through “close to 80 million” passengers in 2015, Griffiths said, up from 70.47 million in 2014. The airport is currently putting the finishing touches on Concourse D, which will lift capacity to 90 million, but that will be the last new building that can be built at the airport.

Dubai’s newest airport Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC) will be expanded from its current capacity of around five to seven million passengers a year to 26 million by 2018. This expansion will make way for flydubai and other airlines to move over from Terminal 2 at Dubai International.

“Flydubai operations will gradually move to DWC in order to make way for more capacity to be released at DXB,” Griffiths later told reporters, adding that the “transition has got to be reasonably rapid” but a timeline has not been determined.

Responding to the comments, flydubai chief executive Gaith Al Gaith told Gulf News by email the airline will “continue to operate from both of Dubai’s airports.”

Flydubai is scheduled to start 70 new weekly flights from DWC this month while maintaining operations from Dubai International.

Despite air traffic pressure, Dubai International expects to overtake Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, which handled 96.1 million passengers last year, by 2018 as the world’s busiest airport.

“We’ve got a little way to go but I imagine in three years we will be the absolute largest airport in the world in terms of total passenger throughput,” Griffiths said.

To handle the increase in passengers, Dubai International aims to get passengers through the airport much quicker than it already does.

“We’re going to be investing in new processes, new technology [and] smart technology to help speed people through the whole experience,” Griffith told reporters.

Dubai International is already seeing an average of 217 passengers per aircraft landing and taking off — the highest in the world — aided by Emirates’ widebody fleet that includes the largest number of Airbus A380s.

Emirates airline president Tim Clark told reporters at the conference that he believes there is a political will to address the regional air traffic congestion issue but that governments lack consensus on how to go about it.

One suggested solution has been to develop a single skies management system over the Middle East, similar to Europe’s Eurocontrol, which Clark said, would be a good system.

“But you got to get the political will to make that work — where does it sit, how does it get carved up,” he said.