Qatar’s Hamad International Airport to boost capacity by 20%

Doha’s Hamad International Airport, the second busiest in the region, plans to increase its annual capacity by nearly 20% using the existing infrastructure.

The strategy outlined by Chief Operating Office Hamad Al-Khater contrasts with its rival Dubai International Airport, which is spending $35 billion on a new terminal to handle 260 million passengers.

“We believe we can even fit 75 to 77 million passengers within the current footprint of the airport,” Al-Khater told Bloomberg. “It needs a lot of work, a lot of optimization, but that is our primary goal.”

Last year, Doha’s airport handled some 53 million passengers, making it the tenth busiest airport in the world by international traffic, ahead of Bangkok, Madrid and Munich.