Airports in Doha
Doha International Airport (DOH) located to the southeast of Doha, nearby to Lulu Hypermarket and within the reach of Ar Rayyan. The Doha International Airport is a small airport and started functioning as regional facility in its early stages of development. Once it received the massive multi-million dollar facelift and expansion of national carrier Qatar Air the Doha Airport has firmly stamped its presence in the international map.
A lot of flights operate in and around 80 different cities and international destinations and to the credit of Qatar, Doha International airport handles quite a significant number of these flights. The annual passenger traffic at Doha airport has grown over the years and in the past three years the growth has more than doubled up to reach a mind-blowing figure of ten million passengers.
Majority of hotels have shuttle pick up facilities, while airport taxis and limos too have on offer pick up services and act as another main alternative transport. Taxis are by far the most popular means of transport and help commuter to reach specific destinations in central Doha and beyond. One can easily visit the Sports City within the Al Waab area and acclaimed Khalifa International Stadium in Ad-Dawha area.
Another significant airport in Doha that is still under construction is the New Doha International Airport (NDIA). It is set to replace the existing Doha International Airport. Current estimates suggest that the said project will be complete by the year 2012. The New Doha international Airport is being built 5 kms east of the DOH airport.
The need for having a new airport in place of an already functional and internationally acclaimed Doha airport arose due to high growth of passenger and cargo levels in recent years and thus suffers from under-capacity in its terminals. The growth can be attributed to the fast paced expansion brought about by the Qatar's state airliner 'Qatar airways'. The growth is also prominent due to the boom in the economy of Qatar. The plan for the NDIA took place in the year 2003 and construction work began in the year 2004.The first two phases of NDIA are scheduled for inauguration in January 2012.while the third and fourth phases of project are scheduled for completion by the year 2015.
NDIA was primarily designed to tackle the growth in volume of traffic at airport. On completion of first and second phase of work, NDIA would be able to handle more than 24 million annual passengers, which is thrice the current capacity of existing airport at DOH. And after the completion of entire project in the third and final phase, it would handle 50 million passengers annually. But according to the reports suggested by menareport.com financial news website the capacity intake would be up to 93 million passengers that would make NDIA the second largest capacity holder in the Gulf Region and only next to Dubai.
It is also estimated that the NDIA would handle more than 320,000 aircraft movements and 2 million tonnes of cargo anually. The check-in and retail facilities are too expected to increase and be 12 timmes more larger than current one at DOH.
The NDIA is being built on an Oasis theme and many of the nearby buildings are built on the water theme , with waived roofs and desrt plants have also been planted using the recylced water.