Each time we land back in Abu Dhabi, it’s like discovering a new international airport in the midst of a tear-down/build-up.

We have an idea of what it looked like when we first arrived — one sort of antique-looking terminal, an Arabesque style, built in the round, with about a dozen gates. That was enough here, a decade ago.

And then the place changed changed, with a new terminal 3 … and then it changed again, and today we dealt with at least the third or fourth iteration of a temporary baggage-claim carousel.

And the place seemed more crowded than ever, and this was at 7 in the morning. What used to be a fairly easy experience is becoming less so, week by week.

These are boom times again, in the UAE, and that means lots of infrastructure being built. Roads, bridges, airports.

The National recently ran an update on the makeover of the Abu Dhabi airport, with the “Midfield Terminal” scheduled for completion in 2017 and built to handle 30 million passengers a year — as compared to the current capacity of about 12 million.

Apparently, 18,000 workers are working on this, using 77 cranes. A huge, $6.8-billion project of the sort we used to see in the U.S., back when the U.S. still put in new infrastructure. Before everything began to slowly decay. (See: LAX.)

It will be nice when it is finished, but at the moment it’s just short of chaos. Only six luggage carousels in the place, leading to long waits just to see where your planes’ bags will be spit out.

And a lot of “wasn’t immigration over here?” and “wait, the duty free shop used to be there” moments. A new/old airport every time in it.

It is quite unlikely we will be here when the new terminal opens … but that will be a banner day for the country’s frequent fliers.