Abu Dhabi’s Midfield Terminal to be 65% complete by year-end

The Dh10.8b Midfield Terminal Building (MTB) will be able to handle as many as 40 million passengers a year

Abu Dhabi’s mega airport expansion project, the Dh10.8 billion Midfield Terminal Building (MTB), will be “60 to 65 per cent” complete by the end of the year. The MTB is slated to open in July, 2017.

In an interview at Abu Dhabi Airport’s headquarters at Abu Dhabi International on Tuesday, Chairman Ali Majed Al Mansouri said there has been “some changes” to the design but that construction remains on schedule. The variations in design were due to the “complexity of the building and changes in technology”, he said.

The airport will be fully operational by the end of 2017, Al Mansouri said, though it is currently being assessed whether to open entirely or in phases from July 2017.

Abu Dhabi Airports has hired the Operational Readiness and Airport Transfer (ORAT) team that will assess the readiness of the terminal, he said, while staff and dummy passengers will test the terminal from the first quarter of 2017.

Almost 40 per cent of the steel structure has been completed and all the glassing will be finished by the end of May or early June, Al Mansouri added.

Abu Dhabi Airports, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, is the manager and operator of airports in the emirate. The MTB is being built by a joint venture between Dubai-listed Arabtec and Turkey’s TAV.

It will have a capacity of up to 40 million passengers a year once operational, and cater to Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways and the carriers it holds stakes in.

Etihad currently has stakes in seven carriers and is seeking approval for an eighth, Europe’s Darwin Airline (operating as Etihad Regional). All the airlines it holds stakes in, except for Ireland’s Aer Lingus, fly to Abu Dhabi International. Darwin Airline is, however, unlikely to fly to Abu Dhabi as it’s a regional carrier.

New arrivals area

The Dh10.8 billion MTB is part of a wider ten-year (2009-2019) Dh37 to Dh40 billion airport expansion plan. A new dedicated ring for arrival passengers has been built at the existing airport site in a bid to alleviate congestion, Al Mansouri said. Currently, passengers arriving at Abu Dhabi International pass through the same area as departing passengers. Al Mansouri declined to provide more details as a press event has been scheduled for Sunday to officially announce the new arrivals area.

Etihad and Abu Dhabi International made headlines in January when passengers were made to wait on aircraft on the runway for up to 12 hours. Aircraft could not depart because of heavy fog and passengers could not disembark because the terminal was filled with passengers.

The enhancement also included the widening of the southern runway to make capable of handling the world’s largest passenger aircraft, Airbus A380, which was completed last year.

Etihad received its first of the ten superjumbos [on order], in December last year. It will operate five [A380s] by the end of this year. Al Mansouri said the airport will be capable of handling between 8 and 10 A380s simultaneously by December this year.

He added that the X-Ray machines at the entrance of the airport will also be removed in the next two weeks to reduce congestion.

Satellite terminals

Abu Dhabi Airports is currently in talks to expand the airport beyond the Midfield Terminal to meet capacity demands until 2050. Al Mansouri said they are looking at building satellite terminals to the north and east of the MTB. The airport handled 20 million passengers last year.