OZU /UNITED ARAB EMIRATES /ABU DHABI /GUIDE
From Abu Dhabi airport to the city
1 h route4 stopsBest: The bus runs 24 hours, which is rare and very useful if you land lateUpdated July 2026
Without the card, you’re stuck at the stop. It’s this airport’s trap and it deserves to go first: the bus into the city doesn’t take cash. There’s no option to pay the driver, or to buy a ticket on board. You need a transport card called Hafilat, obtained beforehand, and anyone arriving without one and with notes in their hand watches the bus leave.
That said, the bus is good: it runs twenty-four hours, which is rare and very useful, takes about forty-five minutes to the centre and passes the Corniche. And a naming warning that throws plenty of people: this airport has been called Zayed International since 2024. If your ticket, your booking or your memory says otherwise, it’s the same place. It isn’t a new airport.
The route, stop by stop
4 STOPS- 01
The bus, and the card
The airport line runs onto the island, follows the Corniche and ends beside the Abu Dhabi Mall, in Al Zahiyah, in about forty-five minutes. It comes every half hour or hour depending on the time and, this is the good part, it runs twenty-four hours a day. At an airport where many flights arrive before dawn, that changes everything: if you land at three in the morning, you have a bus.
And now what to do before going down to the stop: get the Hafilat card. You can’t pay the driver in cash, you can’t buy a ticket on board and your bank card won’t do. It’s obtained from machines and sales points, and you have to do it in the terminal before going out. It’s a two-minute formality that, if you skip it, forces you into a taxi.
It’s literally the most useful information on this page, and it isn’t signposted anywhere in a way you’d see it with a suitcase in your hand and a flight behind you.
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The taxi, and the surcharge
Taxis are metered and there’s nothing to negotiate, which is the comfortable way to solve it, especially if you arrive loaded or at night. What to know is that leaving the airport carries a surcharge on top of the meter, and that the surcharge is somewhat higher if the car you take is large. If there are two of you with backpacks, don’t take the van.
And there’s a geography trick that saves time and money, specific to this city: you don’t need to go through the centre to reach what you came to see. The Grand Mosque and the Louvre are positioned so that you reach both directly off the airport motorway, without entering the island.
Which means if you land in the morning and your hotel is on Saadiyat, or if you’re on a day trip from Dubai, you can go from the plane to the mosque without a detour. Think through the order of your day before getting into the taxi, because distances here are large and a badly planned route costs.
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The name, which changed
This airport was renamed in 2024 and is now called Zayed International, after the country’s founder. Before it was simply Abu Dhabi International. It’s the same place, nothing has changed but the sign, but it’s worth knowing because half the internet still uses the old name and because, when you see two different names, the reasonable doubt is whether they’re two airports.
They aren’t. The code hasn’t changed. What is genuinely new is the large terminal that opened in 2023: if your memory of this airport is from a few years back, it no longer resembles it.
And a practical thing almost nobody warns about: check on your ticket which terminal you arrive at and which you leave from, because not all airlines use the same one and here, as at any large airport, moving between terminals is time you hadn’t counted.
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And if you’re coming from Dubai
Plenty of people don’t fly to Abu Dhabi: they come from Dubai for the day. And it’s perfectly reasonable, because it’s an hour and a half on a straight motorway between the two cities and the two things you come here for, the mosque and the Louvre, are on the way, without entering the centre.
The options: there are direct coaches between the two cities, running often, taking around two hours and costing very little, though they drop you at a station you then have to move on from. There are organised tours, comfortable and expensive. And there’s a hire car or a long-distance taxi, which pays if there are three or four of you.
What is worth doing: if you’re coming for the day, go straight to the mosque first thing and leave the Louvre for midday, which is when its dome works best. And expect tolls on the motorway and traffic leaving Dubai in the morning of the memorable kind.
Frequently asked
How do you get from Abu Dhabi airport to the city?
On the A1 bus, which runs 24 hours, rare and very useful, comes every 30-60 minutes, takes about 45 minutes, follows the Corniche and ends beside the Abu Dhabi Mall. THE TRAP: you need a Hafilat card. You can’t pay the driver in cash or buy a ticket on board, so get one in the terminal before going down to the stop. The taxi is metered and carries an airport pick-up surcharge, a little higher for a large vehicle.
Is Zayed International the Abu Dhabi airport?
Yes, it’s the same one: it was renamed in 2024 after the country’s founder and before that it was Abu Dhabi International. The code hasn’t changed and it isn’t a new airport, though half the internet still uses the old name. What is new is the large terminal that opened in 2023: check on your ticket which terminal you arrive at, because not all airlines use the same one.