Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) has invited companies to submit offers for a contract to operate and manage King Abdulaziz International airport (KAIA) in Jeddah.

The client has set a deadline of 14 April for proposals.

The contract has been tendered before. Only two firms, one comprising a joint venture of France’s Aeroports de Paris Management (ADPM) and Saudi Binladin Group, and Singapore’s Changi Airports International submitted an offer for the deal in July 2016.

Two other firms that were expected to submit an offer for the contract did not participate in the first tender. They are Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad and Germany’s Fraport, the former operations and maintenance (O&M) contract holder.

The tender was subsequently cancelled.

Appointing a private airport operator for King Abdulaziz International is in line with Gaca’s plan to privatise all of the kingdom’s airports by 2020.

King Abdulaziz International is Saudi Arabia’s largest airport in terms of passenger traffic; it handled 31.15 million passengers in 2016, some 3.5 per cent more than in 2015.

The masterplan for the airport envisages increasing its capacity to up to 43 million passengers a year by 2025 and 80 million passengers annually by 2035.

Expansion work at the airport is expected to be completed this year.