The New Doha International Airport (NDIA) is set to open by the end of the year; it was reported by a senior official to Gulf Times, who explained that work is currently going according to schedule and that the new site will be operational within a matter of months.
Speaking at the Qatar Projects 2012 conference, the director of the NDIA Steering Committee Bernardo Gogna explained that if the thousands of contractors who are currently working on the various buildings as part of the development can handover their work on time, then the project will come together by the end of 2012, following six months of testing preceding the opening.
The present airport site will be demolished and redeveloped as part of Doha’s overall urban development, he added.
Situated approximately four kms east of the existing airport, the NDIA will have two runways – a 4,850-m runway and a 4,250-m runway both capable of taking a fully loaded Airbus A380 aircraft, the two runways having enough separation to run concurrently.
Phase one will open with an estimated cost of $14.5 billion and a capacity of 28 million passengers.
Phase one will open a 600,000 sq m three-storey terminal with 22 remote gates and 41 contact gates, six of which will cater specifically for the A380 with a capacity of 24 million passengers a year, more than 40,000 sq m of retail facilities and passenger lounges, an Aircraft Maintenance Centre with a hangar that can accommodate up to 13 aircraft of different types at any one time, including Airbus A380s, A330s, A340s, A320 family of aircraft, Boeing 777s, next generation Boeing 787s and A350s, a cargo facility with a capacity of 1.4 million tonnes a year with 11 hardstand aircraft parking bays, a general Aviation Terminal and Hangar and a courier and mail facility.
The new airport will also feature a new Emiri Terminal complex for VIP flights with additional hardstands, cargo terminal buildings, aircraft hangars and associated airline and airport ancillary features. The complex will include an airport hotel and a 100-room transit hotel within the terminal for the convenience of transfer passengers.
The final phase, forecasted for maximum development from 2015 onwards, will eventually double its capacity to over 50 million passengers, by the time the airport is fully operational in 2018. The airport will then feature an addition of another 24 contact gates, to take the total number to 65 – six of them to cater for the A380s and a further extension of the terminal building to 900,000 sq m.