Dubai Is The World's Ultimate Airport Layover Destination (PHOTOS)

Sometime in the next four years, Dubai International Airport will become the world's busiest airport, surpassing Heathrow with nearly 80 million international passengers a year. Airport officials predict as many as 98.5 million international passengers will pass through by 2020, more than twice as many as the 47.2 million that passed through in 2010.

Sometime in the not too distant future, the Al Maktoum International airport, the city's second international hub -- now under construction just 25 miles from Dubai International -- will open to passengers. With five runways, including at least one purpose-built to accommodate the double-decker A380, it will have enough capacity to handle 120 million international passengers a year, officials say.

Combined, that's more than half a million passengers a day, arriving and departing by air. In 2011, New York's JFK had an average of just 66,200 a day.

Of course not all of those hundreds of millions of people will leave the airports to brave the dry heat and nightmarish traffic of Dubai. But here are 10 reasons they should.