As part of an ambitious expansion plan, Hamad International Airport (HIA), located south of Qatar’s capital Doha, plans to build a cargo terminal that will increase handling capacity to an estimated 3.2 million tons per year from the current 1.4 million tons.
The terminal is slated to be ready by 2023 and will be a multilevel facility with a 85,000-square-meter building footprint across three levels, as well as three mezzanine levels providing approximately 323,000 square meters of gross floor area.
HIA is the hub airport of Qatar Airways, the state-owned flag carrier. Expansion of HIA is a core component of the Qatar Airways Group expansion plan.
Construction of the airport is scheduled to begin by early 2020 and will increase the airport’s passenger capacity to more than 53 million travelers annually by 2022. A second phase of construction, slated to be completed after 2022, will boost throughput capacity to over 60 million passengers annually.
HIA is Qatar’s main commercial airport, handling 34.5 million passengers in 2018. It serves approximately 40 airlines, including a significant number of major players, such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Ethiopian Airlines, Finnair, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa Oman Air and Turkish Airlines, in addition to Qatar Airways, which accounts for about 65% of passengers using HIA, followed by Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo. The Doha-London Heathrow has become the seventh-highest revenue-generating route in the world, accounting for over $700 million in fiscal year 2018.
Qatar Airways Cargo serves more than 60 freighter destinations worldwide via the carrier’s Doha hub and also delivers freight to more than 160 business and leisure destinations globally on more than 250 aircraft. The carrier’s cargo revenue climbed 16.8%, with cargo capacity growing by 11.8% during the fiscal year 2018-19. While FedEx is the undisputed largest air cargo carrier globally, Emirates, Qatar Airways and United Parcel Service are neck-and-neck for recognition as the second-largest carrier.
Qatar Airways took delivery of its 250th aircraft in March and has more than 300 aircraft on order (including options and letters of intent), valued at about $85 billion. Qatar Airways Cargo operates 24 freighter aircraft: five A330s, 17 B777s and two B747-8s. In July, the carrier signed a firm order for an additional five B777 freighters, valued at list price at $1.8 billion, that will operate on long-haul routes to the Americas, Europe, the Far East, Asia and some destinations in Africa. The five new freighters will enable Qatar Airways Cargo to add freighter routes while increasing capacity on key trade lanes.