Dubai-based interior design firm Depa has been awarded a $252m fit-out contract at the New Doha International airport (NDIA). The UAE firm will fit-out 27 lounges at the new airport, which is scheduled to open toward the end of 2012.

“The work will involve fitting marble, wood and lots of complex lighting,” a source in Doha told MEED.

Lindner Depa, Depa’s joint-venture firm that specialises in infrastructure projects, will begin the one-year contract immediately.

The first phase of the new $11bn airport is expected to open in the first quarter of 2012. The development will include two runways and a 140,000-square-metre airport terminal, with 24 aircraft gates and capacity to handle 12 million passengers a year.

In March, Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) was awarded three construction contracts worth $175m on the NDIA project. The three contracts are for the construction of a main fire station, a second fire station, airport surveillance radar building, administration blocks, a medical centre and employee village, general aviation hangar, general aviation terminal and a solid waste-handling facility.

The works, which will take 15 months to complete, also involve the construction of other miscellaneous buildings and external works including utilities, landscaping, road works and car park shade structures.

CCC has replaced China State Construction Engineering Corporation on the three packages, after the Chinese firm had its contract for the work terminated in October 2010 (MEED 4:3:11).