Dhaka's Third Terminal: The Project That Doubles Bangladesh's Air Gateway

Hazrat Shahjalal's 542,000 sq m Third Terminal adds 12–16 million passengers a year, doubling Dhaka airport capacity to 24 million. Opening is targeted for Victory Day 2026.

By the UISC BD Editorial Desk · United Information Service Center · Published 9 September 2026 · 6-minute read

Almost everyone who enters Bangladesh by air enters through one building. Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka has carried the country's international traffic — tourists, business travellers, and above all the migrant workers whose remittances underpin the economy — through terminals built for a much smaller nation.

The Third Terminal is the answer to that constraint, and it is on a scale Bangladesh has not attempted in aviation before.

The Numbers

• 542,000 square metres of terminal floor area.
• 12 to 16 million additional passengers a year, roughly doubling the airport's total handling capacity to about 24 million.
• 177 check-in counters, with 64 departure and 64 arrival immigration desks.
• 16 baggage belts, four of them sized for oversized luggage.
• Automated e-gates on both departure and arrival.
• Cargo capacity rising substantially — reported figures range from 500,000 tonnes a year up to nearly 900,000 tonnes at full build-out.
• Around 6,000 personnel across four shifts to operate it, including close to 4,000 security staff.

The Opening Date Has Moved More Than Once

It would be misleading to present this as a project running smoothly to schedule. The opening has slipped repeatedly. The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh has targeted Victory Day, 16 December 2026, and the government has indicated the terminal will open either on that date or early in the new year. Other reporting has suggested a further slip into early 2027, and the Prime Minister has publicly directed that the opening be fast-tracked.

That tension — a finished-looking building, a contested opening date, and political pressure to move — is the honest state of the project as of September 2026. Readers should treat 16 December as a target rather than a confirmed date.

Why the Cargo Numbers May Matter More Than the Passenger Numbers

Passenger capacity generates the headlines. For the economy, air cargo may be the more consequential figure.

Bangladesh's garment sector — the foundation of its export earnings — competes substantially on lead time. High-value and fast-fashion orders move by air, and constrained air cargo capacity at Dhaka has been a standing complaint of exporters for years, forcing shipments through third-country hubs at added cost and delay. A terminal that materially expands freight handling addresses a bottleneck that sits directly on the country's largest export industry.

The same applies to the pharmaceutical and electronics sectors, where products are high-value, time-sensitive and increasingly export-bound.

The Infrastructure Sequence

The Third Terminal is one element in a build-out this publication has tracked across several stories — the Padma Bridge, the Dhaka Metro, the Cox's Bazar rail link, and the deep-sea port at Matarbari. Each addresses a different chokepoint; together they describe a country systematically removing the physical constraints on its own growth.

Aviation was arguably the most conspicuous gap in that list. A capital city of Dhaka's size operating on a single constrained international terminal was an anomaly. Closing it is overdue rather than premature — and the delays, frustrating as they are, do not change the underlying arithmetic once the doors open.

Related reading

• The Rivers Carry Half of Bangladesh's Cargo
• Bangladesh's Railway Comeback: New Lines, New Reach
• Dhaka's Metro Carries 400,000 People a Day — and Is Still Growing
• Mongla Port Gets Its Own Industrial Zone

Sources

• "Govt to open Dhaka airport's third terminal by 16 Dec or early New Year," The Business Standard — tbsnews.net
• "CAAB targets Victory Day to open Dhaka airport's third terminal," The Daily Star — thedailystar.net
• "Third Terminal opening delayed to early 2027," The Daily Star — thedailystar.net
• "Dhaka airport Terminal-3 to open Dec 16, says minister," Dhaka Tribune — dhakatribune.com