Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) has extended to 20 July the bid deadline for the operations and maintenance (O&M) contract for Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International airport (KAIA).

The closing date for the submission of proposals has been moved twice. Submissions were originaly due on 8 June. The closing date was moved last week to 14 June.

Bidders that are understood to have been prequalified to bid for the deal include:

• Aeroports de Paris Management (France) / Saudi Binladin Group
• Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad (Malaysia)
• Changi Airports International (Singapore)

It has not been confirmed if Germany’s Fraport, the former O&M contract holder, will be submitting an offer.

Fraport and Changi Airports International both previously signed O&M contracts with Gaca in 2008. Fraport was awarded a $111.3m deal to manage KAIA and Riyadh’s King Khaled International airport (KKIA), while Changi Airports International won a $42.5m contract to manage King Fahd International airport (KFIA) in Dammam.

The deals expired in 2014, although Gaca extended its contract with Changi Airports International for seven months.

At the time, both firms were tasked to improve the management of the airports, focusing on sustainable traffic growth and introducing commercial opportunities to establish the airports as independent companies in preparation for a planned stock market listing.

KAIA is Saudi Arabia’s largest airport in terms of passenger traffic; it handled 30.1 million passengers in 2015, a 7.4 per cent rise compared with the previous year.

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

Ongoing expansion work at the airport is expected to be completed by 2017.