The Saudi Civil Aviation Holding Company (MATARAT) and the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP (NCP) have issued an Expression of Interest (EOI) invite for the proposed Abha Airport Public Private Partnership (PPP) project located in Abha City in Aseer region.

The master plan for the project was unveiled in October 2023 by Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman.

The project is being procured under the Build-Transfer-Operate (BTO) model with a concession period of 30 years, according to the invite posted on NCP’s website.

The project scope includes:

•            New passenger terminal building, with a target date for inauguration by 2028, constructed in two phases, with the capacity to handle more than 13 million passengers per annum.

•            New Rapid Exit Taxiway on the current runway

•            New apron to serve the new terminal

•            Access roads to the new terminal building

•            New car park area

Support facilities expansions including but not limited to:

•            Electrical substation expansion

•            New sewage treatment plant

The last date for submission of EOI is 3:00 PM of 31 January 2024.

The RFQ] Request for Qualification] tender release is expected by 19 Feb 2024 while RFP [Request for Proposal] release is anticipated 09 July 2024, according to the EOI notice, which was released on 10 January.

Foster + Partners announced in November 2023 that it won an international competition to design a new terminal for the Abha Airport.

In April 2023, NCP had listed Abha airport among the four new airport projects it intended to tender under the PPP model as part of a bigger pipeline of 200 privatisation and PPP projects.

Abha Airport is the fifth largest airport in the Kingdom, after Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam and Madinah. The passenger traffic volumes reached 4.4 million in 2019 from 1.8 million in 2011, registering a CAGR of nearly 12 percent during this period.

(Writing by Dennis Daniel; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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