Saudi Arabia is going to launch tenders over $4.5 billion to modernise airports in the kingdom, it was learnt on Monday. This, said Alaa Samman, Director of Business Development at the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), is because about 30 million passengers arrive at Saudi airports every year and this figure is expected to go up by 60 million this year. Thus, the airports must be expanded and modernised in order to deal with increasing traffic. These projects, he added, will be completed over the next 20 years.
This year, however, tenders will be launched to build a new airport in Madina and a commercial centre near Jeddah airport. The former will increase capacity to eight million from three million. The commercial centre, on the other hand, will be an airport city that will feature shopping areas, offices, housing units and a flight academy.
