Kuwait’s Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has formally awarded the KD52.8m ($174m) contract for the construction and maintenance of the temporary passenger terminal at Kuwait International airport (KIA) to a team of Turkey’s Cengiz Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret and the local First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Company.

The team was announced to have submitted the low bid in December 2015. 

The deal was signed in late July, but the formal award was delayed due to issues related to the contractor’s submission of a bank guarantee.

The DGCA has indicated that the temporary facility is to be completed within 450 days of the signing of the contract.

The temporary passenger support terminal is expected to augment the existing terminal, which has been operating beyond capacity for years, until the under-construction Terminal 2 becomes operational.

KIA processed 10.2 million passengers in 2015, more than twice its design capacity of 5 million passengers annually.

The passenger numbers mean the expected capacity in 2017, when the temporary passenger terminal is expected to become operational, is already exceeded by the current passenger traffic volume.

The number of passengers passing through KIA has been growing at an average compounded rate of 6 per cent annually since 2006.

The $4.3bn Terminal 2, which was awarded to a team comprising Turkey’s Limak Holding and local Kharafi National, has a design capacity of 13 million passengers annually.