Some 50,000 jobs will be created when all the three phases of the $14bn New Doha International Airport (NDIA) are complete, it was reported on Wednesday.
When fully operational, the airport’s annual passenger handling capacity will reach 50 million and large numbers of jobs will be created, a senior aviation official said.
In an interview with a Qatar Arabic daily – cited by The Peninsula – Abdul Aziz Al Nuaimi, chairman of the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCA), said: “Studies conducted by us reveal that when all the three phases of the NDIA are ready, 50,000 jobs will be created.”
He said the first and second phases of the NDIA will be opened by the end of 2011 and the airport’s initial passenger handling capacity will be 25 million.
He said the airport will be surrounded by five artificial islands and will have as many as 175 check-in counters.
It will be one of the first airports to be designed with the new Airbus A380 in mind and will be the new base for the Qatar Airways fleet.
Qatar is vying with Abu Dhabi and Dubai to become the Gulf’s transit hub with all three boosting airport capacity.
Its flagship airline Qatar Airways, which has a fleet of almost 70 planes, has been expanding rapidly.
The carrier hopes to add 42 planes in four years and has orders for more than 220 planes, worth $40bn.
Related story: Profile: New Doha International Airport (NDIA)