JEDDAH, 3 April 2003 — Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, will officially inaugurate the new Dawadmi Airport next Wednesday.
The airport is designed to handle one million passengers a year.
Saudi Arabian Airlines operated its first flight to Dawadmi yesterday, carrying 67 passengers to this Central Province city from Jeddah.
Saud ibn Muhammad Al-Hilal, the governor of Dawadmi, who was present at the airport to witness the arrival of the Saudia flight, said the opening of the new airport will speed up the overall development of the city and its surrounding areas.
In a statement, Dr. Khaled Bin Bakr, Saudia’s director general, highlighted the “tremendous progress” achieved by the Kingdom in both air and land transportation.
Dawadmi, located west of Riyadh, becomes the airline’s 26th domestic destination. Saudia, the largest airline in the Middle East, links various parts of the Kingdom with its fleet of aircraft.
Saudia will operate four flights weekly to Dawadmi — two each from Jeddah and Riyadh — in the first phase.
“We are ready to increase the flights as the city requires,” Bin Bakr said.
Located 21 km from the city, the airport has three lounges for arrivals and departures.
According to Dr. Ali ibn Abdul Rahman Al-Khalaf, head of the Presidency of Civil Aviation, the Kingdom has spent more than SR50 billion ($13.3 billion) on airport construction and expansion over the past two decades.
The Kingdom has three state-of-the-art international airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. Efforts are under way to expand the Jeddah airport, the main gateway for Haj and Umrah pilgrims, at a cost of $1.5 billion.
Work on the expansion project will start next year and will be completed by the fall of 2010. The project includes construction of new terminals for international and domestic passengers and establishment of 25 air bridges.
Presidency sources told Arab News that the expansion will increase the airport’s annual capacity from 13 million to 21 million passengers.
King Fahd International Airport located 22 miles northwest of Dammam, is the largest in the Kingdom. It is designed to handle 16 million passengers by 2005. The airport’s cargo facility can handle 176,000 tons of freight per year.
