Arriving at the Prince Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madinah early Friday morning to visit my sisters, I missed all the excitement the previous evening when Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman formally opened the new terminal in a grand ceremony.
The new terminal is especially important to the residents of Madinah who are witnessing phenomenal growth as plans continue to expand the Prophet’s Mosque.
The project was constructed and now operated as a private enterprise with the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) obtaining financing through a consortium of Saudi Oger, TAV Airports Holding and Al-Rajhi Holding Group.
The airport and mosque expansions will be a boon for the economy of Madinah and will help create thousands of job opportunities in the city of my birth. Equally important is the primary purpose of the new terminal i.e. to accommodate greater numbers of Haj and Umrah pilgrims making it easier to visit the holy city during the season.
The three-level terminal, costing about $1.2 billion, covers 156,940 square meters with 16 aircraft stands, also features boarding bridges, which means no buses transporting passengers to board planes. There will also be 20 more remote apron stands.
The new terminal is larger than the main passenger terminal, which covers 155,000 square meters. The expansion comes at a critical time, as the number of passengers passing through the airport each year has risen dramatically from about 3.5 million in 2011 to 5.7 million in 2014.
The expansion is only one of a number of projects under way to make it easier for tourists and pilgrims to access Madinah from Riyadh, Jeddah and Makkah. The airport, which is about 15 kilometers from the city center, is expected to expand its access to international flights. It already offers flights to regional airports in Bahrain, Dubai, Doha, Kuwait, Istanbul and Cairo.
The airport will also complement the high-speed Western Railway, now under construction, that will link Madinah with Makkah, Jeddah and the King Abdullah Economic City at Rabigh over 276 miles with five stations. The railway is expected to handle 150,000 passengers daily and an estimated 50 million annually. The first phase is scheduled for completion in December.
The expanded Madinah airport and the railway are expected to have a profound effect on Madinah’s economy. Visitors to the city that are not part of a tour company package during the Haj and the Umrah seasons now will have easier access to the holy city and its historical sites. In addition, once the Madinah Knowledge Economic City is completed in 2020, about 20,000 job opportunities will be created with new accommodations for up to 150,000 residents. The airport, railway and mosque expansion projects anticipate the additional transportation burdens.
Still, the addition of transportation services to our city is met with some trepidation by the residents of Madinah who grew up in what they consider a close-knit community. Perhaps the biggest attraction to living in Madinah is its traditional values of neighborliness and a village outlook on life. Many residents complain that they see some of the old values found in Madinah, but lacking elsewhere in the Kingdom, eroding. We are sensing that the day-to-day lifestyle that makes Madinah unique is more and more mirroring that of Riyadh and Makkah.
Certainly the airport, railway and the creation of new jobs will bring new people and add to our already growing population of about 1.5 million inhabitants. It’s exciting and a bit frightening at the same time because we don’t want to lose the special nature of Madinah. But we also want to see new blood to create an added dynamic to the city. An improved transportation system and new jobs will do that for Madinah, but it also means we must proceed further with caution.
