Tabuk Gov. Prince Fahd bin Sultan will visit the new airport on Tuesday and chair a meeting to preview operations at the new facility.
“The new airport is ready with all logistics to handle more flights and an increasing number of passengers,” Khaled Al-Khaibari, spokesman for the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), said on Monday.
Al-Khaibari said that the airport would also receive international flights. The expansion project has increased the airport’s area of 33,779 square meters by another 12,000 square meters.
The airport has new arrival and departure lounges, jet bridges to bring passengers from gates to planes, he added.
The new airport will help boost the growth of Tabuk province because a large number of people have recently started to travel to Tabuk for business, investment, education and tourism, said the GACA official.
The airport currently serves 60 domestic flights daily. The new airport has new runways, new aircraft parking facilities, maintenance workshops, a control tower, a cargo service building, an electricity plant and a parking area for about 900 vehicles.
“Besides Tabuk airport, plans are afoot to build new airports and also to expand existing facilities," said a report released by GACA recently.
The report said that a massive expansion plan for Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) is currently under way. The plan is to expand KAIA to accommodate the world’s largest aircraft, including A380s, and to increase the airport’s annual capacity to 21 million passengers.
GACA has completed preliminary designs for the construction of various international airports across the country. The authority is carrying out studies to build airports in different regions with lower population density. The first of such airports will be built in Qunfuda.
GACA has also approved funds for a new airport in Jazan, according to the report.
Plans are also under way for the construction of Prince Muhammad International Airport in Madinah. The new airport has been designed to accommodate eight million passengers during the first phase and 12 million passengers in the second phase after the completion of the project. Furthermore, 34 developmental projects at various airports are also to be implemented.
The total cost of all these projects will exceed SR27 billion to be invested in a staggered schedule, according to the needs of Kingdom's airports. Currently, there are 27 domestic and four international airports in Saudi Arabia, constructed in the last four decades. King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) in Dammam is the largest among the Kingdom’s airports.
