Passenger traffic in 2022 can rise from 90 percent to 105 percent compared to the year 2021 as pandemic restrictions ease, bringing total passengers as per the conservative track to approximately 34 million, according to the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA).
The Authority issued a special report on the number of passengers expected in 2022 as restrictions on air travel and health-related travel are removed in around 25 percent of countries globally.
The report prepared by Air Transport Department follows two tracks in the predictions related to the number of passengers during the 2022 World Cup, conservative and aggressive.
Also, number of passengers according to the aggressive track are expected to reach more than 36 million passengers, assuming travel recovery continues, and more countries remove travel restrictions.
The forecast is based on industry indicators including the anticipated gradual recovery of international air transport from the Covid.
Also, the report is updated with the IATA Air Transport data (Airport-IS) related to schedule statistics until the end of 2022.
The expected volume of charter and shuttle flights has been considered during the FIFA 2022 World Cup between Hamad / Doha International Airports and other GCC airports.
An agreement was recently concluded between Qatar Airways Group and Fly Dubai, Saudi Airlines, Oman Air and Kuwait Airways for the same.
The number of flights (scheduled and chartered) at Hamad and Doha International Airports could reach about 28,000 during the World Cup, the report says.
It also predicts that total passengers (arrivals, departures and transits) during November and December 2022 will exceed the numbers recorded during the same period in 2019 by an average of about 11 percent.
This brings the total number in November 2022 to about 3.5 million passengers on the conservative path and 4.1 million on the aggressive path.
The number of passengers in December 2022 will reach 3.6 million on the conservative path and more than 4.7 million on the aggressive path, the report said.