The ADAC Project

The Abu Dhabi Airport Landside Primary & Secondary Roads Project, UAE (Photo, above & below – compliments of Abu Dhabi Airport Company (ADAC) – end of 2017)


There, those roads that link the new terminal building (bottom) to the highway network of Abu Dhabi (at the top) are our project. Those are the primary roads, and the secondary roads are all the other roads around which connect the multiple facilities within the airport with the terminal buildings and the primary roads

This week marks the end of a long, drawn-out Project that yours truly has been helming for the last 6 friggin years! Yes, 6 years, only for the completion and close-out. I joined the Project (the Abu Dhabi Airport Landside Primary and Secondary Roads Project) in May 2017 to replace the Project Manager who resigned. And then in Jan 2018, I took it over from my Senior Project Manager who also resigned. (He had to move to Canada to complete his Canadian-residency requirement).

About 6 months down the line, i.e. in June 2018, a new project in Dubai materialized for the Company, and my boss asked me whether I was interested. Of course, I grabbed the opportunity! (What? My family was in Dubai and it was a brand-new Project!) The Abu Dhabi Airport Project was a loss-making Project with tons of issues that had to be resolved, and so I moved my butt to Dubai (but our Company’s policy is that you could move your butt to anywhere in the Company, but your old responsibilities STAY WITH YOU, unless somebody takes over. And since it was a more-or-less completed Project by that time, I stayed on as its Project Manager, albeit off-site). Slowly, one by one of our project staff left and by the end of 2018, we demobilized completely, staff, office and everything! We had finished everything physically by then, but were stuck in obtaining clearances and authority permits for one reason or another (not of our doing, sez us). And the Client and Consultant insisted that this had to be done contractually (I think they were actually relishing in the fact that they had this clause in their contract… The Client was in no hurry to take over the project at that time, I think. The terminal building was years from being completed. The UAE was knee-deep in an unwanted war in Yemen, sucking up unnecessary expenses. And then came COVID-19!) So, it ain’t my fault! (That’s what I’ve been trying to say). But let’s put all this behind us as the airport’s about to be opened! And we received our Performance Certificate (which signifies the final completion and acceptance of a Project). Finally!

Here’re some photos of the Project. For memory’s sake. Enjoy.


Wet-mix (aggregate base course) laying in progress. This was about when I first joined in 2017 – earthworks and road works were in progress, some bridges were still under construction…


The condition of one of the secondary roads (SR-11) in May 2017


Rolling in progress. A road being paved in May 2017


Not all asphalt is black – Here you can see red sand asphalt being laid on top of one our bridges. First time I saw this in my work experience


And you see bridge decks being painted blue?? This is one of the layers in the bridge deck waterproofing system. It’ll later be coated green (yeah, the waterproofing is a multi-layer system)


Working in summer is a drag. Especially, with a sandstorm happening. Here’s a view of the Project in Aug 2017, sandstorm, aeroplane and all


Oct 2017, on a completed part of the project


The structures in the Project are a whole new story – ever seen a pronged bridge pier like this? This isn’t the original design. It was a T-shaped pier originally. Then cracks appeared on the pier head. The Consultant and Client blamed it on our poor workmanship. And we ‘counter-blamed’ it on poor design. Eventually, with a lot of effort, grit and investigations, we were proven right. There WAS a deficiency in the design, and the Consultant had to do a redesign to strengthen some of the piers. Hence, the pronged-shaped pier with 2 additional props!


Some of the piers had to be ‘fattened-up’ to strengthen them. Notice the left most pier in the photo above? We had to strip the completed concrete surface, scabble them, add additional steel reinforcement and cast them back. Hence, the fat pier


Underground utilities are another big part of the work. Here is a storm water drainage pipe under construction. The storm water drainage network is extensive and for the handover to the authorities, it had to be spotlessly cleaned?!? Awww, c'mon, it’s a god-damned drain for goodness’s sake!


A worker in a drainage manhole. See what our workers had to do?!? Cleaning & testing of the drainage network lines


Testing of the fire-fighting system in our 2 substations, Jun 2019. And this is the main cause of our problem of getting authority clearances! Our 2 electrical substations had to be certified by Abu Dhabi’s Civil Defence Authority, who is in charge of the fire prevention systems of buildings in Abu Dhabi. We had 2 tiny substation buildings in our Project (tiny in comparison to the size of our Project – It’s like 2% of the friggin total project value), and the approval process was stuck because our great designer (of the Client) did not design them to the latest fire prevention codes of Abu Dhabi. And so, we were all languishing in approval hell, with the Client and Consultant reluctant to issue us any change order to incorporate the design changes (they’re small changes, just modify them, willya?) (Well, who’ll pay for them? And what if it goes wrong? And what about the time extension? You’ll blame us for the delay, etc, etc, etc.) Finally, our Company (or more appropriately, my Project Director) buckled, and asked me to just get it fucking done. Eventually, especially when the Client became interested again (because their own commissioning consultants kept stalling it), we got it approved!


Finally, a note on Safety. Thank God, that we had no loss-time injury (LTI) in the whole duration of our Project, from 2014 to 2023! 12 million man-hours worked without an LTI. I thank our Safety Team for driving a hard agenda and ensuring that we all go home safe and intact. I thank our workers, my team members and colleagues, and our subcontractors, for cooperating and supporting our sometimes ‘ridiculous’ requirements. I thank our Consultants and our Clients for emphasizing safety, and being a pain-in-the-neck on safety. (We had one suicide case though. A worker tried to hang himself from a railing of a bridge, but luckily for him (and for us), the noose he tied broke. He survived, but broke quite a few bones due to the fall to the ground below. He was sent back to India after he recovered. Hopefully, his mental condition’s fixed as well). The above photo is a program-wide safety training organized by the Client in one of our fellow contractor’s (TCAJV) facilities.

That’s all for now. Here’s a link to some photos of the people of the Project.