Terminal 4 of the Kuwait International Airport expects to begin operations on 8 August, according to local media reports citing Kuwait Airways Corporation chairman Yousef Abdulhameed al-Jassi.

Terminal 4, which can handle up to 4.5 million passengers annually, will cater exclusively to national carrier Kuwait Airways.

This will take the number of operating terminals at Kuwait International to four.

The other three are the main terminal, now called Terminal 1; Jazeera Airways terminal (Terminal 5); and Sheikh Saad al-Abdallah Terminal, a small business aviation terminal, which Flydubai has also been using for all Kuwait-bound flights since 2013.

South Korea’s Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC) was appointed in April to operate and maintain (O&M) Terminal 4. The $127.6m O&M contract covers a five-year period and expires in 2023.

In December last year, Italy's Leonardo was awarded the contract to design, supply and commission the terminal’s baggage handling system (BHS).

Terminal 4 was built for $174m by a team comprising Turkey’s Cengiz Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret and the local firm First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Company. It was originally designed as a temporary facility to absorb excess passenger traffic from the old terminal, Terminal 1, while the $4.3bn Terminal 2 is undergoing construction.

Terminal 5, dedicated to low-cost carrier Jazeera Airways, opened in May. The terminal can handle up to 1.2 million passengers a year.

These two new terminals take the airport’s total annual capacity to close to 11 million passengers.

Kuwait International handled 13.7 million passengers in 2017, an increase of 17 per cent compared with 2016, and nearly three times the capacity of Terminal 1.

Last month, Kuwait’s Public Works Ministry (MPW) prequalified 22 groups for the contract to develop the second phase of the Kuwait International airport expansion. That covers the construction of passenger services buildings and the roads that connect to the first phase, the under-construction Terminal 2.