Construction began on the New Doha International Airport in 2005 which is just 4km from the existing facility and will be built largely on reclaimed land. The new airport will be twelve times larger than the existing airport and will be two thirds the size of the city of Doha. This highlights how much the airline is dependent on connecting traffic through Doha rather than origin and destination traffic. Due to the time it will take to build the new airport the existing airport needed to be expanded at the same time.
In November 2006 the US$90 million Premium Terminal was opened at Doha International. This facility handles all First and Business Class passengers and was completed in just nine months. The airline reached the milestone of a fifty aircraft fleet this year.