DAMMAM, 5 June 2003 — The traffic on the Saudi-Bahraini King Fahd Causeway, which had dropped drastically during the Iraq crisis, is fast returning to normal, according to King Fahd Causeway Authority (KFCA) officials who look forward to a considerable increase in the coming days.
The bridge connecting Bahrain with mainland Saudi Arabia has been a major source of revenue as thousands of Saudis and Bahrainis cross the bridge every day.
According to KFCA officials, prior to the Iraqi crisis, between 10,000-15,000 people crossed the bridge from either side. The traffic peaked on weekends as many Saudis liked to spent their weekends on the island while many Bahraini families liked to be with their relatives and friends on the other side of the bridge.
However, this routine was interrupted when the crisis in Iraq worsened, and by the time American and British forces launched their attack on Iraq, the traffic dropped drastically.
“From 10,000 to 15,000 people every day, the traffic came down to 2,000 to 3,000. It was an alarming situation,” an official who preferred not to be named told Arab News.
Then came the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which worsened the situation further and the traffic reached a record low. “The bridge never experienced such low traffic since the end of the Gulf War in 1991,” the official said.
But traffic started to increase and, according to the officials at the Causeway, is now back to its pre-crisis level.
The new facility at the Causeway — an express lane — is also proving a big success and traffic on that lane is also steadily increasing.
The decrease in flights between Manama and Dammam also helped increase traffic on the bridge. Gulf Air, which was earlier operating more than a dozen flights every week, came down to seven flights a week and as a result started ferrying its passengers via the Causeway to Bahrain. Many other foreign airlines followed suit, and for the past few years the number of airline passengers traveling over the Causeway has nearly doubled.
The Saudi Presidency of Civil Aviation declared this an illegal operation and threatened punitive measures against the airlines operating via the bridge. For a few days the PCA warning deterred airlines from carrying passengers via the Causeway, but within a week they again resumed the practice, which continues to this day. The loss of the PCA and the national carrier became the Causeway’s gain.
According to figures released by the KFCA, more than 85 million passengers have crossed the bridge since its inauguration by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd in November 1986.
Initial estimates were that 1.6 million people would travel over the Causeway every year, but the figures released by the authority show that the number is now double that estimate.
