How Has Qatari Air Traffic Performed During The World Cup 2022?

Image Credit: Qatar Airways

As the FIFA World Cup 2022 comes to an end on Sunday, let’s take a look at how Qatari air traffic has been positively affected by the famous tournament. 

To establish this, we will look at the following three entities to note down such growth patterns:

• Doha International Airport (DIA/OTBD)
• Hamad International Airport (DOH/OTHH)
• Qatar Airways

Some entities have performed better than others, as you will see in this extensive blog post. 

Doha International Airport

Image Above: Airport Movement Statistics for Doha International Airport

For December 10-17, the airport handled 205 movements, which represents an increase of a staggering 876.19% compared to the same period last year.

This shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, given the fact that Doha International Airport is barely utilized by Qatar Airways or as the main international airport of the country anymore. However, it still represents the logistics needed to cater to any overfill in demand that the likes of Hamad International Airport may have faced. 

Below is the last four weeks’ worth of data for the airport, which even features the odd quadruple-based percentage growth:

What we can see in that data is that DIA is most definitely being utilized more during this football tournament. 

Another thing that can probably be expected is that once all World Cup traffic has been dispatched and completed, then we will see a major drop-off in DIA’s movements moving forward. 

Hamad International Airport

Image Above: Airport Movement Statistics for Hamad International Airport

Hamad International Airport didn’t have as much growth as DIA did, but they still posted some healthy percentage increases over the course of the tournament. 

For December 10-17, the airport handled 612 movements, which is an increase of 11.68% compared to the same period last year. 

The airport is not far away from achieving pre-pandemic levels, with the airport currently only needing to find around 61 additional movements to make that a reality. As the likes of Qatar Airways are constantly expanding their route network month-on-month, we can expect that number to get tighter going into 2023. 

Below is the last four weeks’ worth of data for the airport:

What we can see is that movements compared to a year ago are most definitely in a better space for Hamad, with strong double-digit figures as well. 

We can probably expect to see a slight uptick in traffic once the tournament concludes, with many fans still yet to head home. But seeing as most of the teams have been knocked out already, it may not be as noticeable. 

Qatar Airways

Image Above: Airline Movement Statistics for Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways has been in the same position as Hamad International Airport in terms of continued and consistent growth. 

The airline did experience somewhat of a surge, but it wasn’t in the outlying context of the old DIA. 

For December 10-17, the airline handled 504 movements, which is an increase of 3.70% compared to the same period last year. 

Such a percentage increase has dwindled the further the tournament has developed, which isn’t too surprising as the airline restores itself back to pre-Tournament operations. 

Below is the last four weeks’ worth of data from the airline, and it is clear where you can begin to see the percentage increases:

This data does exemplify the above points about movement numbers dwindling down as fans eventually go home if they were knocked out of the tournament. 

However, we would need to look at other carriers that may have increased services in Hamad and Doha, respectively. Still, again such differences would be minimal as opposed to the actual additional revenue created. 

Even so though, with Qatar Airways being the sponsor of the tournament, this World Cup will no doubt offer additional exposure to the carrier going into the future. 

Overall

It remains clear that Qatari air traffic has positively benefited from this tournament and will be welcome news in terms of additional revenue for the two airports and also the airline as major sponsors for the tournament.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how much exposure post-tournament the airline will get and whether increased frequencies and movements will correlate to the airports, as the next step of Summer 2023 is around the corner.