National, global consortiums to develop Taif, Qassim, Hail airports - Abduljabbar

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RUYADH, April 18, 2017
The development and operation of the Taif Airport will be entrusted to a consortium of ASIAD, Consolidated Contractors Company, and Flughafen München GmbH, announced Tariq Abduljabbar, Deputy to the President of the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation.

He also announced that Sulaiman bin Abdulaziz Al Rajhi Charitable Foundation and Turkey’s TAV Airports would be partnering up to develop and operate airports in Qassim and Hail.
Abduljabbar was speaking at a gathering with members of the media, which the authority had held for the first time in February.

These partnerships, he explained, will be based on the Build-Transfer-Operate business model, which is considered the most appropriate one to upgrade airport operations, as it already proved to be at Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madina.

He added that these partnerships are part of the Authority’s efforts to uprate the services presented at airports, because they aim to provide excellent services to passengers and boost the quality of existing ones, while also invigorating business activity at airports.

Speaking about the Authority’s Airport Sector and the responsibilities it has to handle, he said that the sector not only has full supervision responsibilities of all of the Kingdom’s 27 airports, but also is concerned with building new ones, expanding existing airports, and the development and maintenance of airport facilities. The sector also readies locations for investors, and is tasked with business development to boost revenue.

Abduljabbar stressed that the Authority’s aim is to intensify traffic through Saudi airports, and the statistics show that its strategy is working: a record 84 million passengers went through Saudi airports in 2016, along with more than 1.1 million flights.

He pointed out that the standards used to determine ideal locations for airports include comparisons among population densities in urban and rural areas in a given zone, and analyses of businesses and business sectors that are active in that zone, as well as its geographic features, and operational concerns in terms of navigation and air safety. Other important factors, he elaborated, include urban transportation modes and patterns, and the proximity of populated spots to the nearest airport within a 200-300km radius. Also, economic feasibility, business cases, and profitability are also highly prioritized factors.

The Authority had initiated media gatherings to bolster ties with the media and other stakeholders in civil aviation to keep them informed and updated on developments in the industry, with experts, technicians, engineers, and professionals from the Authority as hosts.