“This airport has reached the end of its lifespan.” Qatar is becoming an extremely popular destination ,especially with construction work involved with sporting events and increased tourism.
The impact of these record numbers are certainly being felt by passengers during busy periods, with parking facilities at the arrivals terminal and passport control at arrivals coming under particular strain.
Last summer, for example, airport officials advised passengers to arrive four hours before their flights to accommodate expected queues and delays.
Officials also acknowledge that Doha International Airport [DIA] has been operating beyond its capacity. Speaking to Doha News in November, executive vice-president Patrick Muller said:
“This airport has reached the end of its lifespan. We’re just trying to manage the operations as good as we can.”
He added that the airport’s declared capacity is 29 aircraft movements (takeoffs and landings) an hour. But DIA typically operates at between 35 and 38 aircraft movements an hour, including non-commercial operations.
Continued expansion
The growth of Qatar’s national carrier, Qatar Airways, has led to a need for the continued expansion of facilities at the current airport, as the country awaits the opening of the much-delayed Hamad International Airport (HIA) at Doha.
Doha International Airport has seen the addition of new gates and more aircraft parking bays. And in January, it launched a new mobile app to give passengers more information about facilities within the airport, a sign that management does not expect to close the airport to passenger traffic in the short term.
Doha's new airport ,HIA, is now expected to partly open by the middle of 2014, considerably later than the January 2014 date proposed by the transport minister last year. Two official opening dates for HIA have come and gone in the last three years: Dec. 12, 2012 (12/12/12), and April 1, 2013.
In a statement in January, the chairman of the Hamad International Airport (HIA) steering committee Abdul Aziz Mohammad Al-Noaimi said that the airport was now “on track for a phased opening by mid-year 2014.”
Despite this, no firm opening date for the airport’s expected soft launch has been set.
A spokeswoman from the HIA steering committee said today that they have “no new update” to give about the planned opening schedule.
The far larger, state-of-the-art, Hamad International Airport [ HIA] at Doha, Qatar, is obviously eagerly awaited by the aviation industry and Qatar's burgeoning tourist economy. It is much needed !! Excitement is mounting ! The Hamad International Airport will be world-class !!
New Doha International Airport
