Kuwait is considering building a new airport to meet the state’s air traffic growth over the next 20 years.

The new airport is expected to cost up to $12bn and the capacity to handle up to 25 million passengers a year, according to Information Minister Salman Sabah Salem al-Humoud al-Sabah.

The new airport will be situated in northern Kuwait, Al-Sabah told an investment forum in Kuwait on 21 March.

The executive said the government would allocate the land and the private sector would build, operate and manage the airport.

Kuwait is envisaging a new integrated airport that would provide all transport and logistic services and generate up to 15,000 jobs.

Kuwait International airport handled 13.7 million passengers in 2017, an increase of 17 per cent compared to 2016 and the volume of its air cargo rose to 241,000 tonnes in 2017, up from 195,500 tonnes in 2016.

Several projects are underway to revamp the existing airport.

The $4.3bn Terminal 2 is expected to be completed between 2020 and 2022. It has a design capacity of 25 million passengers annually and will replace the existing terminal, which has been operating beyond capacity for several years.

The standard operational readiness and airport transfer (Orat) process for Terminal 4  (T4), which can handle up to 4.5 million passengers, is also underway.

Under the initial plan, T4 was designed to augment the capacity of the existing terminal at the airport until the $4.3bn Terminal 2 becomes operational. However, recent developments indicate the new passenger terminal will now likely to be converted into a permanent facility.

In addition to the existing terminal and the new T4, Jazeera Airways’ $46.3m dedicated terminal is expected to become operational in the first half of 2018.

This means Kuwait International airport will have four terminals by end of the year, inclusive of the Sheikh Saad al-Abdallah terminal, a small business aviation terminal built in 2008, which Flydubai has been utilising for all Kuwait-bound flights since 2013.