Inside The $3 Billion New Terminal of Abu Dhabi Airport

Welcome to Abu Dhabi's new terminal. Hi Sam, welcome to Abu Dhabi International Airport Terminal A. Our new gateway to Abu Dhabi. When I first came and saw this terminal, I think this is another mega terminal, right? It's gonna be lots of walk and then lots of calories get burned on walking. But when I'm here, I see that all the check-in counters fit quite tightly, and that means it's not as big of a walk-in as you originally thought. How many check-in counter there is? Or check-in rows? We have 12 check-in rows here and 142 check-in counters. Right, I can see there's six here, A, B, C, D, E, F. And there's six more over there. Yes. And I can see there's a couple rows that's dedicated to Andy Harb. Yes. I just had a go at self-service, and as soon as I stand here, they're standing in my face. They try to find my tickets, my itinerary, by knowing my face, which is also very interesting, right? And they couldn't find it, so they asked me to scan my passport. So that's the secondary way to recognize my travel itinerary. Walking towards the end of the terminal, there's actually a dedicated premium check-in. This is for Etihad Airways. Let's go inside and see what it's like. So there's ample amount of sitting area on both end of the premium check-in. But what's better is there's a dedicated driveway. You can actually drive past here and come through this door and go directly to check in for the ADR premium. Let's not forget Etihad still have first class. Let's see the first class check-in area. The first class area has some style because I like this scale. You know, it's just like you stand there, oh dear. I'm going to cover up. I'm going to tell you how high I'm up three digits here, like embarrassed. Like, you can weigh yourself, weigh your back, like how cool the design of this area is. So, in the first class exclusive check-in area, right, lots of seats, but I don't want to sit here too long because I want to check out the lounge. found this in the middle of this large terminal you have this structure in here. Tell me more about what this structure is. Is it a piece of art or what it is? It is a piece of art. Sana al-Noor is the barjeel, it's called barjeel in Arabic. which is an environmental piece that takes the air from the lower level, from arrival to here. So it's a natural air condition in this area. See you. Seems like they have a meet and greet lounge right after you enter the airport. This is a very interesting guest experience. The staff told me the whole meat and grease service cost 400 Durham. They'll take you from arrival at the airport into here. Then they will check you in while you're waiting here. Then you go through the airside, through the immigration and security, you enjoy the lounge and they will escort you onto your airplane. Just walked through the duty-free after the security, we're now airside. And I think this is the middle of the terminal, because the terminal, if you look from a satellite map, it looks like an X. It has four wings and we're in the middle of the structure. I want to do a test at this mega-airport terminal. from the middle point here to the end of the pier B and come back and see how long that will take. Let's try it. Wow, that was quite a walk for me. From the middle to the NMB concourse took 8 minutes 9 seconds. We've arrived at B-24, and now Syrian Air flight to Latakia is ready to board. For me, when I first got noticed that this terminal is from Tom Cruise film, Mission Impossible. I think he is the first guest of Abu Dhabi Airport premiered at the whole airport through his movie. We're gonna have a tour of the Etihad Business and First Class Lounge. The Business Class Lounge is near Gate C-27, so C-27, then this is the way to enter. This is not quite the old Eddie Hallows that I'm used to. Apparently they told me there's three floor and each floor has different stuff and there's also direct access boarding to the aircraft The ground floor, we have this Leeland restaurant, which is Arabic cuisine. Vegetable Korma. Wow. It's got lots of food here, huh? But my favourite place is at the top floor. There is a stunning Constellation Bar and another buffet area. I just had a whole plate of the prawn briyani. And this is something to remember. Very good. While we're touring the lounge, at the end we saw these doors. And behind the door is actually Gates D-43. You can board direct to your aircraft. And obviously, there's no airplane right now, so we were just showing it. But it reminded me of the old days, the concord room. You can board a concord through the concord room. And there's also a few other lounges in the world you can do this. On the top floor is the first class lounge. This is the lounge I would love to see. Yeah, so à la carte in first class Yeah, beef tenderloin, seafood, tandoori, ravioli. I hope I can come back for another experience, a food experience, but today we're just going to explore. Here I am relaxing at the back of the lounge. There's about six or seven of these individual privacy pots. Now you can just relax and perhaps take a little nap before the flight. Only one passenger so far. What a lucky passenger. You're gonna have the whole first class lounge to yourself. I'm lucky because I met Sam here. I'm lucky cause I met Sam here. Oh, come on. I've been watching Sam on all the YouTube videos and flying on every airline in the world. Was your favorite airline? What's my favorite airline? Well, I'm very loyal to Etihad. That's where I'm here. You frequently fly in and out of Abu Dhabi. I do, yes. And this is your first time using the new terminal? First time I'm using this domain layer and I like what I see. So, just before I leave the lounge, the staff took me here, there's a private room. for private room, in fact. For the benefits of first-class and residence passenger, you can have your lounge area, private dining, your private room, and also including en-suite toilet facility. We spent literally a whole day filming at the airport. The time is 7 p.m. The day turned into night. Now I see a lot of passengers, they are arriving through the two upper floors and come down and then they are transiting and the airport comes alive at night here. If you love visiting this airport, my only recommendation is just come a little bit early. Enjoy the experience.