From Dubai airport to the city

The metro, and which terminal

Dubai’s metro is driverless, runs elevated for almost the whole route and follows the city’s main avenue end to end. The red line has a station inside two of the terminals, and from there you reach Downtown, Marina and the southern edge of the city without changing. With the traffic here, it beats any car at rush hour.

What to check is the terminal, and this is the important part of this page: T2 has no metro stop. If you fly with one of the airlines operating from there, the metro isn’t a direct option. And second: the metro doesn’t run twenty-four hours, whereas this airport does. If your flight lands in the small hours, you don’t have it.

To pay, get a Nol card from the station machine: it works on metro, tram and bus. And a detail that surprises people: there are carriages reserved for women and children, marked on the platform, and also a premium-class carriage that costs double.

The taxi, and its two surcharges

Dubai’s taxis abound at any hour, the airport runs twenty-four hours and the fleet is enormous, they’re metered and there’s nothing to negotiate. It’s the obvious option if you land at night, if you’re loaded with bags or if you’re coming out of T2.

But there are two surcharges worth bearing in mind so you aren’t surprised. The first: taking a taxi at the airport carries a pick-up surcharge that isn’t token here, and it makes the flagfall considerably higher than a taxi hailed in the street.

The second: there’s a twenty per cent night surcharge between ten at night and six in the morning. If your flight lands at two in the morning, you get both. It isn’t that it’s expensive compared with Europe, but it’s worth knowing why the meter starts where it starts. Ride-hailing apps also work here normally.

Dubai doesn’t have one airport: it has two

Dubai has a second airport south of the city, called Al Maktoum, which handles mostly cargo and some low-cost passenger flights. It’s a very long way from the centre, much further than the main one, and it’s a completely different place.

This is a classic booking mistake: you buy a cheap flight to “Dubai” and don’t look at the airport code.

If it says DWC instead of DXB, you’re flying to the other one, which is a considerable distance from everything and where the transfer will cost you time and money. Check the code before buying, not after.

And if you land there, expect the connection to the city to be worse: there’s metro nearby on some stretches and a bus, but it isn’t the same convenience as the red line coming into the terminal.

And one thing about the airport itself

It’s worth understanding what this airport does, because it explains why Dubai exists as you see it. It isn’t an airport serving a city: it’s an airport around which a national strategy was built. It sits at the exact point from which a long-haul aircraft reaches Europe, Asia and Africa, and that geography turned into business is what holds the city up, along with the port.

For you, that has a practical consequence: if you have a long layover here, don’t spend it in the terminal.

With six or seven hours and no checked bags, there’s time to take the metro, go down to the Creek, cross by abra, see the souks and come back. Entry formalities are quick for most passports and the metro drops you at the terminal itself. It’s one of the few layovers in the world where going out is genuinely worth it. Check your entry requirements beforehand, and be generous with your margin.