New Doha International Airport

The New Doha International Airport (NDIA) will be an international airport that Qatar can be proud of. It will be very exciting once it is fully opened and here we take a closer at look at what will be happening once the construction has finished...

Here are some of its fascinating facts:

The New Doha International Airport will have a land area in excess 22 square kilometres. This is about a quarter of the size of the old city of Doha.

At its ultimate development in 2015, the new airport will handle 50 million passengers, 2 million tonnes of cargo, and 320,000 aircraft landings and takeoffs each year. In short it will be three times the size of the existing airport in Doha, and six times the capacity.

Its opening day capacity in 2012 will be 24 million passengers. This equates to 30 times the current population of Doha. It will also be able to handle 750,000 tonnes of cargo every year.

By opening day, as many as 8,700 passengers can go through the terminal complex in a single hour.
NDIA’s eastern runway will be 4,850 meters long, only 150 meters shorter than the longest commercial runway in the world at Ulyanovsk-Vostochny International Airport an Russia.

At opening day, the 350,000+ square meter passenger terminal facility will be the largest building in Doha, covering an area equivalent to 50 full size football pitches. As such, it will be bigger than Doha’s City Center Plaza which has an internal area of 290,000 square meters. Flights and passenger processing facilities will be organised in a way to minimise walking distances for travellers. Moving walkways will also help to shorten the distances to the contact gates.

The new airport check-in and retail areas alone will be big enough to squeeze in ten wide body aircraft. When finished this area will be about 12 times bigger than the check-in and retail areas at the existing facility, making the journey through check-in much quicker, and the shopping experience more varied.

Many of the new airport buildings have a water theme. The passenger terminal roof is shaped like a wave.

Water is also featured along the way for arriving passengers. The Emiri terminal is externally shaped like sail boats. On the inside, many of the finishes feature water themes. Support facilities have undulating metal roof structures.

The control tower will be over 80 meters high. The control tower is shaped like a crescent providing a key night feature shining on the NDIA facilities.

NDIA will create thousands of airport, airline, government, and private sector jobs for men and women in Qatar. The multiplier effect will create more support jobs off airport.

Over 100 hectares alongside the new airport have been reserved for commercial development. Private development opportunities include free trade zone, office and business park, hotels, and retail mall. This will diversify NDIA revenue and create more jobs for Doha.

Over 60 million cubic meters of fill will be reclaimed from the sea and used as fill to create the site. This is the equivalent of adding 1 meter of soil to 9200 football pitches. Fill material was borrowed from areas approved by the Supreme Council of Environment.

Over 6.2 million cubic meters of improperly disposed household waist has been removed from the site and disposed off properly in an engineered landfill. This is the largest such environmental program ever in the Gulf region.

To conserve energy the passenger terminal curtain walls are coated to reduce solar exposure, the roof overhang provides shade and the roof is insulated. The mechanical systems include CO2 sensors to regulate air intake based on occupancy, our stratification and displacement ventilation. The electrical system has daylight monitoring and occupancy sensors. The landscaping uses desert-adopted species and irrigation water from recycled waste water.