SAUDI Aviation Minister Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz has kicked off construction work on the new terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) airport in Jeddah, which will cost SR27.1 billion ($7.2 billion).

Prince Sultan, who is also the Minister of Defence, laid the cornerstone for the project during a ceremony at King Abdul Aziz airport, whose annual capacity should rise to 30 million passengers when the project is completed in 36 months.

The current capacity for the airport, which handles millions of pilgrims travelling to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, stands at 17 million passengers. Saudi Binladin Group was awarded the contract late last year following a bidding process.

The country’s largest builder will construct a single 670,000-sq m terminal with 94 aircraft bays to replace the two ageing facilities currently handling airport traffic.

It will also build what the Saudi airports authority has described as the world’s tallest airport control tower at 133 m (436 ft), and infrastructure linking the terminal with roads and the planned high-speed railway that will join Jeddah with Makkah and Madinah.

Saudi Binladin Group was awarded the main construction contract worth SR27 billion ($7.2 billion) in November last year. The first phase of the contract covers construction of a 670,000-sq-m terminal with 94 aircraft bays. This new terminal will feature 46 additional departure gates, 96 airway bridges, 200 new counters, a luggage-handling system, five passenger lounges and a 56-room hotel.

Saudi Binladin has undertaken to build the control tower in the second phase. An 8,200-capacity car-park, three power generation and cooling centres, data administration centres, infrastructure and road networks will also be constructed. The airport will also get new tunnels, corridors, train stations and communications systems; new taxiways; aprons; roads and support facilities.

Meanwhile, the main construction contract to develop Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammad Bin AbdulAziz International Airport in Madinah will be awarded at the end of this month.

Executives at IFC (International Finance Corporation), a member of the World Bank Group appointed financial and legal adviser to the project, said one of eight local and international consortiums in the race will be chosen to build, operate and maintain the renovated airport in a public-private partnership (PPP).

The objectives of PPPs are to improve levels of service to the public, by introducing the private sector’s technical know-how, and to decrease the financial burden on the public sector for capital expenditure.

The main contractor will be selected through an international bidding process. The winning firm will have a mix of technical and financial expertise.

The project, launched by Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), will be rolled out in two phases.

The first phase, worth $1.5 billion, is aimed at increasing the airport’s passenger handling capacity from 3.5 million passengers to eight million by the end of 2014, whilst the second phase hopes to increase capacity further, to 14 million passengers by 2022.

Across the two phases, expansion plans involve construction of a new passenger terminal and renovation of the existing runway, with construction of a second runway also possible.

Among other developments, the GACA plans to develop airports in Al-Jouf, Qassim and Abha. It is currently renovating runways of seven domestic airports where 95 per cent of work has been completed. Prince Abdul Majeed Airport in Al Ula would soon be open, while the Tabuk regional airport will be opened in the first quarter of this year, with Najran regional airport operational in the second quarter.