A smooth ride in turbulent times
Sharjah Airport foresaw the return of air travel and was prepared to meet it.
By Helen Jones
It is a hot afternoon in May, but the terminal of Sharjah Airport is airy and cool. Passengers pulling bags cross paths under the decorated domed ceiling of the main concourse—the largest of three domes that dominate the terminal’s silhouette—as they hurry to check in for flights that will radiate across the region, to Chittagong, Najaf, Cairo, Karachi, Baku, Trivandrum. Following a two-year shock that pushed aviation to its limits, air travel is back.
“In the first quarter of this year, we witnessed a 119% increase in the number of passengers to reach more than three million, compared to 1.3 million during the same period in 2021,” says HE Ali Salim Al Midfa, chairman of Sharjah Airport Authority. The number of flights, he says, jumped 89% to 21,336. The airport handled almost 40,000 tons of cargo in the same period, a rise of more than a quarter. In March alone the airport handled almost 15,000 tons and Al Midfa expects double-digit growth for the year as a whole.
At check-in for Air Arabia’s 15:15 flight to Riyadh, the line of passengers is moving quickly as bags are weighed and processed. Some bypass this step, using self-check-in and self-bag-drop that were introduced as part of a strategy to streamline the airport experience. Prescient investment in “innovation-driven travel” is paying off.
Smart systems aimed at making movement through the airport seamless and contactless is part of the airport’s digital transformation plan. Smart gates and automated boarding pass validation are already working. A passenger flow and queue management system is driven by 112 sensors that allow for real-time monitoring. A smart information desk, launched in February, encourages passengers to virtually communicate with airport staff though voice and video calls. An interactive airport map, part of the same system, shows passengers the fastest route to their gate by scanning their boarding pass.
“Shifting to a contactless journey is a priority as we prepare for the post-pandemic period,” Al Midfa says. “The rollout of biometric technology, a crowd monitoring system, artificial intelligence, voice control, and other innovations lay the foundation for this contactless goal.”
At the height of the pandemic crisis, in April 2020, 66% of the world’s commercial air transport fleet was grounded. A million jobs in aviation disappeared.
HE Ali Salim Al Midfa, chairman of Sharjah Airport Authority, has been in management at the airport for 25 years, there is little he hasn’t seen.
In early 2020, Covid-19 snapped borders closed and air travel plummeted. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), passenger numbers last year were less than half of those in 2019. The year before was worse still. At the height of the crisis, in April 2020, 66% of the world’s commercial air transport fleet was grounded. A million jobs in aviation disappeared.
After two years of pandemic restrictions, demand for air travel has soared. IATA expects passenger numbers to return to 83% of 2019 levels this year, and that is held back by a slower recovery in Asia-Pacific where the region’s largest market, China, maintains tight border controls. Airports and airlines that slashed jobs to manage the slowdown have struggled to scale back up as travellers return. Passengers have encountered chaotic scenes at airports in Europe and the US, including delays, cancelled flights and lost luggage. But not in Sharjah.
In 2021, seven million passengers travelled through Sharjah Airport—1.2 million in December alone, consistent with pre-pandemic levels. Tracking the recovery, the airport moved to ensure that its systems were ready to meet it.
The sophisticated operation at the airport today contrasts sharply with its humble beginnings, 90 years ago. The first flight to Sharjah—to what is now the UAE—on October 5, 1932, had just four passengers and landed on an airstrip that was little more than steamrolled salt flats. The old airport in Al Mahatta was eventually decommissioned in favour of a new airport 15 kilometres from the city.
The modern airport opened in December 1979. A 35-metre minaret-inspired control tower and three impressive domes—the largest spans 48 metres in diameter—underscored its Arab-Islamic identity and were hand-drawn by Sharjah’s Ruler, a reflection of his investment in the project. It was reported at the time to be one of the most beautiful airports in the world, despite serving only three flights a day.
Today, the airport is delivering on a AED 1.9 billion expansion plan. “We are continuing with our expansion of the terminal to increase capacity to 20 million passengers by 2025,” Al Midfa says. Launched in October 2020, during the pandemic, the East Expansion added 4,000 square meters of space to the main terminal, including four new gates, at a cost of AED 40 million.
A smart information desk encourages passengers to virtually communicate with airport staff.
Technology powers this modernisation. “In [the] digital age, technology plays a crucial role in increasing the efficiency of airports. In the next 20 to 30 years, Sharjah Airport will be one of the [most] tech-driven airports in the region,” Al Midfa says. “The implementation of advanced technologies will lay the groundwork for building an airport of the future.”
Even during the pandemic, home airline Air Arabia, the first and largest low-cost carrier in the Middle East, was adding routes. In October 2021, the airline launched flights to Entebbe in Uganda. In February, it opened Osh in Kyrgyzstan. The airport welcomed new airlines, too. In 2021, Indian airlines Vistara and Go First, Russia’s Aeroflot, Qatar Airways, Oman Air, SalamAir, Turkey’s AnadoluJet, and Fly Egypt launched services to the airport.
Al Midfa has overseen operations at the airport for more than 25 years, and was appointed chairman in 2014. There is little he hasn’t seen. “Running a modern airport is highly complex. You must be prepared to deal with both the predictable and the unpredictable.”
Photographs Courtesy of Sharjah Airport Authority
