Staff Writer

Saudi Arabia announced that it plans to tender four new airport projects under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model as part of a bigger pipeline of 200 privatisation and PPP projects across 17 sectors announced by the National Centre for Privatisation and PPP (NCP) on Wednesday.

The projects would be procured by Ministry of Transport and Logistic Services, according to details shared by NCP. The launch dates for the PPP tenders weren’t disclosed.

The four airport PPP projects are as follows:

Abha International Airport

The existing airport is operating beyond capacity, handling 4.4 million passengers annually against designed capacity of 1.5 million passengers. The targeted capacity for the new airport is 8.5 million passengers per annum by 2023, scalable to 13 million passengers per by 2053.

The new facility will be procured under a 30-year Build-Transfer-Operate (BTO) contract. The launch date for the tender wasn’t disclosed.

Taif International Airport

The capacity of the current airport is 600,000 passengers per annum. The targeted capacity for the new airport, which will be procured under a 30-year Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain (DBFOM) contract type, will target an annual passenger handling capacity of 4 million by 2030 and 7.4 million by 2053. The launch date for the PPP tender wasn’t disclosed.

Hail International Airport

The project intends to develop the airport and service facilities in accordance with the standards approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The contract type, duration and launch details weren’t disclosed but the targeted increase in capacity for the airport is 3 million passengers per annum.

Prince Naif International Airport

The project intends to develop the airport in Al Qassim in line with ICAO standards and increase its capacity to 5.3 million passengers per annum. The contract type, duration and launch details weren’t disclosed.

Saudi Aviation Strategy aims to increase the country’s annual passenger handling capacity to 330 million by 2030.

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(Writing by Senthil Palanisamy; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)