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Abha International Airport in southwest Saudi Arabia is scheduled for a major expansion.
Middle East airlines are among the fastest-growing carriers in the world. At the Farnborough International Airshow in July, which was generally a weak event for attendance and new aircraft orders, those airlines that did attend and announce or confirm deals were often from the Gulf region, such as Qatar Airways.
Saudi Arabian flag carrier Saudia and the new Riyadh Air, which plans to start operations in 2025, have large orderbooks. Saudi Arabia’s rapid emergence as a tourism destination means that a much larger proportion of future passengers will be in the form of origin and destination (O&D) traffic.
Little wonder, then, that the region’s airports are undergoing a burst of expansion, with new and expanded facilities appearing from the desert sands.
Perhaps most significantly, Saudi Arabia has several airport expansion programs underway or planned. By far the largest is Riyadh’s King Salman International Airport, a six-runway, 57 sq km project that is expected to be the world’s largest airport when it opens in 2030.
The new airport will initially expand, then eventually subsume, the existing King Khalid International Airport (RUH), which plans to grow its annual passenger capacity from 30 million to 120 million as the new airport comes online at the end of the decade.
Similar levels of expansion are taking place at King Abdulaziz International Airport (JED) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s main commercial hub. Already the site of a major terminal project in recent years, capacity will jump from 40 million to 114 million by 2031 following further expansion of the current facility and the creation of a second terminal and fourth runway.
Elsewhere in the country, several other airports are undergoing major expansion or being created from scratch. Abha International Airport (AHB), in the far southwest of the country near the Yemen border, for example, will see its capacity grow from 1.5 million to 13 million when the first phase of a huge expansion program is completed in 2028.
New airports are also starting to come into service in the country’s northwest, to act as entry points for Saudi Arabia’s fast-burgeoning tourism industry.
The underlying factor behind all these projects is Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiative, designed to diversify the country’s economy away from hydrocarbons. Saudi Arabia has seen the beneficial effect in the neighboring United Arab Emirates, particularly Dubai, of using aviation as a major plank for economic growth.
DUBAI EXPANSION
It is in Dubai that an equally large project was given the go-ahead earlier this year. Dubai World Central (DWC), otherwise known as Al Maktoum International, has existed since 2010, with the aim of handling traffic growth that would eventually overwhelm the ability of Dubai International Airport (DXB) to cope.
The intention was always to make DWC the centerpiece of a vast aviation city, but this has been limited until now, and DWC handles relatively small numbers of charter and scheduled flights, together with significant quantities of freight. However, earlier this year the Dubai government took the brakes off the project and launched the long-awaited full expansion of DWC, which will grow to handle 150 million passengers annually. And that is just an interim stage.
“The recently announced expansion of Al Maktoum International Airport marks a significant milestone in Dubai’s aviation strategy,” Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said. “This ambitious second phase, set to open within the next decade, is designed to transform DWC into a state-of-the-art facility . . . supported by multiple runways and terminals.”
Once completed, DWC will have the capacity to handle 260 million passengers and 12 million tonnes of freight annually.
“The project is necessitated by DXB, our main hub, nearing its full capacity,” Griffiths said. “We are committed to expanding DXB from 90 million to 120 million passengers per annum through process optimization and the integration of new technologies.”
Dubai Airports makes no secret of the fact that it is casting a wary eye on developments in Saudi Arabia.
“The expansion of DWC is driven by the need to not only match but also exceed the capabilities of upcoming hubs, such as those in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,” Griffiths told ATW.
Less than two hours’ drive from DXB, meanwhile, Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport’s (AUH) long-delayed Midfield Terminal—now renamed Terminal A—takes capacity up to 45 million, three times that of the original building.
The new terminal is designed for easy transit for departing passengers, with the airport authorities claiming a 12-minute “curb to gate” journey for travelers. One effect of the greatly increased capacity will be to accommodate the renewed growth ambitions of Etihad Airways, which is based at AUH.
BAHRAIN AMBITIONS
New and recent developments elsewhere in the region further underscore aviation ambitions.
Bahrain International Airport (BAH), for example, opened a new terminal in January 2021. It was badly needed; the old terminal, with an annual design capacity of 4 million, handled 9.7 million in 2019. The new building is capable of processing 14 million passengers per year.
The island state’s old terminal was much appreciated by travelers for the simplicity of its layout and the swiftness with which passengers could pass through, whether arriving or departing, Bahrain Airport Company CEO Mohamed Yousif Al Binfalah told ATW, and a conscious effort was made to replicate its best aspects, “but on a larger scale and complemented by new technology.”
Passengers find the new building “very friendly, almost intuitive; the floor is very simplified compared to most terminals in this region,” Al Binfalah said.
BAH is home to Gulf Air, and Al Binfalah said the new terminal provides an excellent platform for the carrier’s expansion. The airline has its own dedicated channels for premium passengers, not only for check-in and security screening, but also for facilities such as immigration.
“I would say we have a very healthy proportion of airlines expressing interest to serve Bahrain. It’s worth noting that we’ll be hosting Routes World later this year, probably the biggest event for this industry, and we’re working on promoting Bahrain as a destination,” Al Binfalah said. [Routes World is an Aviation Week Network event of which ATW is a part.]
The new terminal will suffice for some time to come, partly because the airport still has “ample” slots to offer airlines, he added. “We’ve not reached anywhere near the capacity of our runway.”
However, the island’s economic growth will eventually mean that a new location will be necessary and the country’s transportation ministry expects to issue a report on this by the end of the year. A new site off the northwest of the island has been designated, which will require some land reclamation.
The continuing growth of traffic in the region is also demonstrated by the latest statistics for Hamad International Airport (DOH) in Doha, Qatar, which saw a 25% jump in passenger traffic in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, welcoming 25.9 million passengers. This included a 22.1% increase in point-to-point passengers, which airport authorities attributed to a significant growth in the number of airline partners operating from the airport and a flourishing tourism sector in Qatar.
Demand from and to the Middle East experienced a remarkable 45.3% growth, driven by the recovery of airline operations between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The GCC comprises the six nations on the western side of the Gulf.
Traffic to and from Europe grew by 32.8%, supported by the launch of new destinations and increased capacity to existing destinations from Qatar Airways and the launch of services by Spanish carrier Iberia in late 2023.
DOH projects a further increase of passenger traffic in the second half of 2024 and expects to pass the 50 million passenger per annum mark by year’s end.
Meanwhile, Kuwait International Airport’s (KWI) new Terminal 2 was delayed three years by the pandemic but is now expected to open in 2025. This will have an initial capacity of 13 million passengers but has the potential to expand to 25, then 50 million if succeeding phases are constructed. The existing airport has a capacity of 13 million passengers annually but handled around 15 million in 2023. The increasingly busy terminal spurred LCC Jazeera Airways to construct its own dedicated terminal alongside Terminal 1 in 2018.
The overall effect of the myriad projects in the region will be a huge increase in the Gulf’s airport capacity and reputation as a leading global transit center on top of the increased percentage of O&D traffic as the region’s nations step up their promotions as leisure resorts.
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