Hamad International Airport (HIA) has increased security screening capacity and reduced queuing time in its transfer areas. The hub, in Doha, Qatar, has opened two additional transfer points, bringing the total to four separate transfer areas spread across the north and south nodes of the terminal, reducing walking times to transfer areas for passengers.
With its latest initiative, HIA aims to ensure that at least 95% of its transfer passengers queue for under five minutes. HIA exceeded this mark during the month of April 2018, where out of the more than one million transfer passengers that were screened, 99.5% queued for under five minutes.
Brigadier Essa Arar, director of HIA’s airport security department, said, “We are constantly trying to improve the security processes at the airport to make it more efficient and customer friendly.
“This is a great combined effort by HIA, Qatar Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Interior to improve the experience of passengers traveling through the State of Qatar. We will continue to work together to achieve excellence in security in Qatar’s award-winning airport.”
To further enhance customer satisfaction in the transfer areas, a new customer service and security training package has been introduced. The airport has had 500 of its staff undergo a six-week training program regarding high safety and security standards for exceptional customer service.
Passengers are also being given the opportunity to share their customer satisfaction feedback. Out of the one million customers screened in March, 90% of the customers rated their experience as either good or excellent.
Saeed Yousef Al-Sulaiti, vice president of airport security at HIA, commented, “At HIA, our goal is to ensure that our facilities and services provide our passengers with a hassle-free journey. This can only be achieved when we tackle key issues that passengers have, such as long waiting times and queues.
“The project took a total of eight months to roll out and has been praised by a number of international security regulators ranging from those within the UK, the USA and New Zealand. HIA is recognized as one of the safest airports in the world and continues to meet the highest standards of safety and world-class security.”