Hamad International Airport has not only won prestigious global awards in recent months for its best services but has also become the busiest aviation hub of the region.
According to recently released figures, Hamad International Airport (HIA) served a total of 9.16 million passengers in the first quarter of 2019. In the same time, HIA has also handled 56,573 aircraft movements and 505,581 tonnes of cargo in total.
HIA served 3.2 million passengers in January, 2.8 million in February and 3.15 million in March, which includes passengers arriving, departing and transferring through Qatar’s airport, signifying a 5.07 percent increase from the previous year.
The airport also handled 19,458 aircraft movements in January, 17,563 movements in February and 19,552 movements in March, which includes total number of aircraft take-offs and landings at the airport marking an 8.27 percent increase from the first quarter of 2018.
Commenting on the closure of the first quarter, Eng. Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer at Hamad International Airport, said: “The strong start to 2019 illustrates HIA’s accelerated and sustained growth. As we continue to witness this steady growth, we are committed more than ever to empower our passengers and continue to provide them with a seamless and hassle-free journey at the airport.”
Last month, Qatar’s aviation hub was ranked as the Fourth Best Airport in the World at the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2019. HIA had also been ranked as a five-star Airport and was honoured with the title of ‘Best Airport in the Middle East’ for the fifth year in a row and ‘Best Staff Service in the Middle East’ for the fourth year in a row.
The 2019 World Airport Awards by Skytrax were based on nominations from millions of passengers across more than 500 participating airports worldwide, making them one of largest passenger interaction survey awards in the world.
In January this year, HIA was declared the second best airport in the world for On-Time Performance (OTP) according to OAG’s Punctuality League report. As per OAG, the leading global provider of digital flight information HIA ranked second in the major airports category (from 20 to 30 million) departing seats per annum) with 85.4 percent of its flights operating on time.
The Punctuality League is based on 58 million flight records using full-year data from 2017 to create a ranking of the best OTP for the world’s largest airlines and airports. HIA newly joined the top 20 airports in the ‘Major Airports’ category within the Punctuality League this year, which is recognised as the world’s definitive measurement of on-time performance.
