Hamad International Airport (HIA) successfully served a record high influx of passengers during the winter holiday peak period, handling one million passengers in the first week of January alone, an average of 138,649 passengers in a 24-hour period.
This is the most number of passengers handled in a single day, and the airport managed to maintain its high standards and operational excellence.
Queuing times at key touchpoints of the airport were significantly reduced with average wait times as low as one minute 20 seconds at transfer security and two minutes 24 seconds at arrival immigration.
At least 99.4% of passengers transferring through HIA queued for less than five minutes at transfer security screening, with the average wait time only at one minute 20 seconds. This is an industry-leading achievement which has been maintained throughout 2019, accomplished by training highly professional staff according to the latest international aviation security standards. As many as 49 screening lanes are also operated simultaneously during peak times.
Almost 100% of transfer passengers with Minimum Connecting Time (MCT) of 45 minutes or less were connected to their onward flights without delay. This was achieved by conducting their security screening at select contact gates which have been equipped with X-ray machines and walk through metal detectors, instead of having them go through security screening at the transfers’ hall.
This is another industry-wide achievement which was accomplished throughout 2019. HIA also plans to adopt advanced screening technologies which won’t require passengers remove laptops from cabin bags, further improving the travel experience of passengers.
96.5% of arriving passengers at HIA at certain peak periods queued for less than 10 minutes at immigration with the average waiting time being as low as two minutes 24 seconds. To minimise any inconvenience, the airport offered complimentary parking to customers during peak periods so that passengers could be dropped off and picked up with ease. Waiting times at the taxi pavilion were also kept at a minimum and free luggage loading services were offered to passengers.
The self-service kiosks implemented in the terminal by HIA as part of its Smart Airport programme has automated the check-in, bag-drop and pre-immigration security processes, which has allowed departing passengers to be processed even faster. With the use of innovative software solutions that forecast passenger traffic in real-time and measure waiting times, the airport was able to proactively minimise queuing times.
Earlier this year, HIA announced its successful operations in 2019, having served a record 38.8 million passengers, which is the most number of passengers it has served since the start of its operations in 2014, showing a year-on-year growth of 12.44% compared to passenger numbers in 2018.
HIA’s rapid growth is being addressed by its massive expansion project, Phase A of the expansion is set to comprise of a central concourse linking concourses D and E and will increase the airport’s capacity to more than 53 million passengers annually by 2022. Phase B, which will be completed after 2022, will extend concourses D and E to further enhance the airport’s capacity to more than 60 million passengers annually. The expansion project will also feature an indoor tropical garden, a water feature, landscaped retail and F&B space and the world-class Al Mourjan lounge.
HIA is currently a candidate for the ‘Best Airport in the World’ award by Skytrax. Passengers can vote for HIA by visiting the Official Skytrax World Airport Survey website.
