Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths is the CAPA Asia Pacific Airport Chief Executive of the Year.
A new category established for 2015, the award is given to the airport executive who has “demonstrated outstanding strategic thinking and innovative direction for the growth of their business and the industry”.
Griffiths accepted the award from CAPA executive director Peter Harbison at an event held in Singapore. Griffiths was selected for successfully managing Dubai through a massive expansion programme and completing an “unprecedented” runway improvement project.
“In 2014 Griffiths oversaw one of the largest ever runway improvement projects, which required Dubai to operate with only one runway for three months,” Harbison said.
“Despite the runway closures Dubai was able to overtake Heathrow in 2014 as the world's biggest international airport as passenger throughput increased by 6% to 70.5m.”
Griffiths also leads the ongoing operation and development of Dubai World Central (DWC), which will eventually be the world's largest airport with an ultimate capacity to handle up to 240m passengers and 16m tonnes of cargo.