Abu Dhabi Airports Company (Adac) says that it plans to tender the construction contract for the $6.8bn midfield terminal at Abu Dhabi International airport “soon”.

James Bennett, the new chief executive officer of Adac, says the design of the terminal has now been reviewed and that the project is in the due diligence stage. The midfield terminal has been severely delayed and was originally due to be complete in 2010. Bennett says the terminal will now “take five years [to complete] from the time the tender has been finalised”.

About 14 groups submitted prequalification documents for the contract in April and the prequalification process has just been completed, says Bennett. He would not comment on how many of the groups are prequalified.

The midfield terminal will be built between the two existing runways at Abu Dhabi International airport. It will have a total built-up area of 630,000 square metres and will also include a multi-storey car park. US-based Kohn Pederson Fox Associates designed the terminal building, which will have a capacity of 20 million passengers in its first year of operation.

In the first six months of 2010, Abu Dhabi airport had an 11.7 per cent increase in passenger traffic in the first six months of 2010, totalling 5.1 million passengers (MEED 21:7:10).