Taif international airport will be set up under a built, operate and transfer (BOT) contract, according to a top official of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA).
International consortia are vying for the project and the airport is scheduled to start operations by 2020. Bids for the project will be invited next year, said Tareq Alabduljabar, assistant to the president for airports.
The airport, to be established 120 kilometers from Makkah near Souk Okaz, will be a state-of-the-art facility designed according to international standards.
Initially, Alabduljabar said, the airport will have a capacity to receive 5 million passengers annually but it will be increased gradually to handle 8 million passengers.
GACA, he said, has provided the Road Sector of the Ministry of Transport with relevant details of the new site and coordinates of the airport so that it can be linked to the road networks, work on which will be completed by 2018.
He said that the plans for the construction of Saudi Arabia’s fifth international airport were in line with the Saudi Vision 2030. Alabduljabar said that the new project would help handle the growing number of pilgrims.
It will serve as a new gateway to Saudi Arabia for Haj and Umrah pilgrims.
Qunfudah airport
Officials said that GACA has been allotted a site to build the Qunfudah economic airport.
The site was finalized after detailed technical studies were carried out by experts from the GACA, Al-Muzaif municipality and the Makkah governorate.
Commenting on the Qunfudah airport project, Alabduljabar said that the GACA had studied 14 possible sites for the project.
These measures, he said, are part of the government’s efforts to improve air transportation in Saudi Arabia.
The passenger traffic to the new airport is expected to be above 500,000 per year.

Source: Arab News