Bahrain’s Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications (MTT) and Ministry of Works have pre-selected France’s Aeroports de Paris Ingenierie (ADPI) for the contract to design and build the air traffic control centre (ATCC) at Bahrain International airport.

The formal letter indicating ADPI’s selection is expected within days, a source close to the transaction tells MEED.

Ten companies submitted technical and commercial offers to design and build the ATCC building in June. They are:

• Al-Ali Engineering (Qatar)
• ADPI
• Ansari Engineering Services (Bahrain)
• Dheya Tawfiqi Engineering (Bahrain)
• Gulf House Engineering (Bahrain)
• Ismail Khonji Associates (Bahrain)
• Mazen al-Umran Consulting (Bahrain)
• Middle East Architects (Bahrain)
• Mott MacDonald (UK)
• Phoenix Engineering Services (UAE)

An ATCC contains an airport’s navigational aid systems (Navaids). Navaids provide airport staff with a visual representation of air traffic, allowing the systematic and safe landing of aircraft and the organised assignment of parking spaces, and other operational manoeuvres.

The selected design-and-build contractor will work with the Navaids sub-contractor.

The $1.1bn main construction contract for the expansion of Bahrain International was awarded to a team of the UAE’s Arabtec Construction and Turkey’s TAV in early 2016. Specialist systems such as passenger air bridges, baggage-handling machines, moving walkways, and security packages have also been awarded.

Apart from the ATCC, the packages still to be awarded include a maintenance, repair and operation (MRO) hangar, airport access roads, and the airport information and communication technology (ICT) system.