If you travelled from the Hamad International Airport (HIA) last month, you could not have missed how vibrant and busy the airport looked and felt.

Statistics from the Official Airline Guide, a global travel data provider, suggest that HIA was the ninth busiest international airport in the world in April by seats.

The rankings were based on scheduled airline capacity in April, compared to the equivalent pre-pandemic month in 2019. The Top 10 Busiest International Airports were calculated using international seats only.

HIA recorded 2,147,221 seats in April 2023, ranking it as the 9th busiest in the world in April, a rise of four places (13th) from the same month in 2019. While six of the busiest international airports are in Europe, three are in Asia (two in the Middle East).

The Dubai International Airport was ranked first, with 4,484,082 seats, while London Heathrow came second (3,835,054 seats) in the same month. 

Amsterdam airport had just over three million seats (3,066,752) while Paris Charles de Gaulle stood at 2,957,595. Istanbul Airport had 2,906,081 passengers while Singapore’s Changi registered 2,862,096 passengers.

Frankfurt International (2,724,265) and Seoul Incheon (2.526,098) completed the top eight while Madrid’s Adolfo Suarez (2,005,242) rounded off the list.

The first phase of HIA’s airport extension project, which was completed in November 2022 just ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar, increased the airport’s annual passenger capacity to 58 million. Once the airport’s next stage of expansion is complete in 2025, it will be able to welcome 70 million passengers every year.

HIA recently announced that passenger numbers had more than doubled year-on-year, representing a 101.9% increase from the 2021 numbers and 92.1% of the pre-pandemic 2019 total. It witnessed a 164% increase in passenger traffic in the second quarter of 2022 alone.

In February, HIA was chosen as the ‘Best Overall Airport in the World’ at the 19th Annual Global Traveler Tested Reader Survey Awards, voted by readers and frequent business and luxury travellers. The airport was also awarded the ‘Best Airport in the Middle East’ for the sixth consecutive year.

HIA had also been ranked as the second-best airport in the world, along with titles for ‘World’s Best Airport Shopping’ and ‘Best Airport in the Middle East’ for the ninth time in a row at the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2023.

Last year, the HIA had been named the World’s Best Airport for the second year in a row at the SKYTRAX World Airport Awards 2022 in Paris, France. They won the 2021 award in London.

The HIA recently announced the launch of next-generation Wi-Fi services, empowered by Cisco technologies, across its state-of-the-art terminal.

They had also launched the world’s first-ever FIFA Store at the Qatar Duty-Free.

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