JEDDAH, 17 April 2003 — King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) in Dammam, which is the largest airport in the Kingdom with a capacity to handle 16 million passengers a year, is facing a major passenger-drain problem.
A number of international airline companies, some of which have halted operations from Dammam because of high operational costs, are now transporting passengers to Bahrain from the Eastern Province cities via King Fahd Causeway so that they can catch their flights from Manama Airport. As a result, the number of passengers traveling from King Fahd airport has decreased considerably.
According to a report carried by Al-Watan Arabic daily quoting the Presidency of Civil Aviation (PCA), the number of passengers decreased from 1,037,000 in 2000 to 1,015,000 in 2002.
The paper said only 14 foreign airlines are now operating from the Dammam airport. They are: Kuwait Airways, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Gulf Air, Air-India, PIA, KLM, Lufthansa, Garuda, Biman, Jordan Airlines, MEA, Egypt Air and Syrian Airlines.
Before the new airport was opened in November 2000, 17 airlines operated flights to the old airport in Dhahran, the Arabic daily pointed out. British Airways ceased operation on March 31, 2001, followed by Philippine Airlines and Iran Air, it added.
“International airlines and passengers consider the Manama airport a better alternative to the Dammam airport,” the paper said, attributing the preference to lower operational and rental costs, greater availability of flights to major international destinations, and lower ticket prices.
The paper said that the PCA’s decision to reduce the number of weekly Gulf Air flights from Dhahran in 1998 from 24 to nine had negatively affected the new airport. Gulf Air transports its passengers in the Eastern Province on special buses to Manama airport and allows passengers to park their cars at the airport free of charge. Other airlines also provide similar services to attract passengers from the Kingdom, the paper said.
King Fahd airport was designed to accommodate five million passengers in the first phase and 16 million by 2005. Located 50 km northwest of Dammam, the state-of-the-art facility is spread over an area of 776 square kilometers.
Prince Fahd ibn Abdullah, assistant minister of defense and aviation for civil aviation affairs, said in a recent interview with Okaz that the presidency would continue its efforts to increase passenger and airline traffic to and from King Fahd airport. “King Fahd airport is closer to Dammam, Qateef and Jubail than Manama airport,” he pointed out.
Prince Fahd expressed his hope that the introduction of more direct flights would help King Fahd airport attract more passengers in future.
“We should have the ability to handle those flights on the basis of a marketing strategy, and this could be possible after privatization and reorganization of the presidency,” he told Okaz daily.
The presidency has come up with a number of recommendations to increase passenger traffic to the airport. But according to Al-Watan, most of these recommendations are still in the paper.
“In a recent press statement, the airport administration said it was reducing service charges by 80 percent and rents by 60 percent, but in reality things are going on as they were,” it said.
Ali Al-Khalaf, PCA chief, has asked foreign airline companies to stop transporting passengers from Saudi cities to airports in Bahrain and other neighboring countries by road to be flown out from there. “This is tantamount to violating civil aviation regulations in the country,” he said in a letter to airline companies.
According to press reports, Qatar Airways and Kuwait Airways have started taking passengers from Ahsa and Al-Khafji regions to Doha and Kuwait airports by special coaches after issuing them with boarding passes in the Kingdom.
Officials of the Gulf airline companies strongly reacted to the PCA move. By preventing them from taking passengers along the King Fahd Causeway to Bahrain airport and at the same time not allowing them to operate more flights from Dammam, the PCA was restricting the passengers’ freedom of choice, the airline officials said. They alleged that the authorities are thus compelling passengers to travel from the King Fahd airport, which does not offer direct links to many international destinations.
