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| Bird's Eye View of the New HAMAD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT |
Hamad International Airport – My “Trial Passenger”
Experience
Travelers from around the world will soon experience the “State of the
Art” airport facility in Doha as the new airport is about to unfold to the
whole world very soon. The New Doha
International Airport (NDIA) or will soon be known to the public as the HAMAD
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (HIA) will start its commercial flight this April. The HIA is
situated within next to the city of Doha with breathtaking road scenery toward
the departure area, and has the longest runway second in the world today.
As any other airport, HIA need to do some test to see its
preparedness, so public testing comes to the rescue. The HIA management invited thousands of people
from the member of the public to participate in its testing. Yours truly has been invited as one of those
lucky ones to experience it first. So,
to be able to do so, I leave from work for a day just to be in this historic
occasion, so with most others I supposed as it was done on a Monday.
We came as early as 8:30am till around 1pm on the 18th of
March 2013. As it was said at the
orientation, we acted as normal passengers undergone the usual a traveler does
in an airport, so does with the member of the official airport staff. This process includes the departure and
arrival kind of thing as usual. I got
the Qatar Airways Cairo flight while some of my colleagues got the Sharjah
flight. We cannot get so excited with
that one anyway as there is no real plane to embark with to complete the
journey, that was sad. Not to mention that
safety equipment they made us wear and that uncomfortable heavy helmet that
literally ruined our hair!
After our very exhausting ordeal with the whole process, we finally
come into the day’s end. It was fun and
unique experience though. Only, the
usual waiting was really killing as they also pretended that the flight is
delayed and there is no other way but to wait.
Having to say all that, of course, we are so anticipating for a
sumptuous meal right after, and to our dismay the food was of no special,
nothing but a sandwich, a cupcake, some dates and beverage of no other choice… small
bottled water! I was expecting of at
least a variety of beverages to quench our thirst after they laid us under the
sun at the tarmac during that fire drill stage.
No doubt, their preparation in terms of security preparedness is
excellent but they failed us on that entertainment value of the
experience.
Here are some of the limited photos we able to get as there is no
picture taking allowed. We just tried to
take some pictures of the beautiful structure to our delight!
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| The beautiful roads and bridges toward the new airport |
at the orientation arrival lounge
at the fire drill
at arrival area.
