Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) has invited contractors to submit bids for a contract to build new aprons at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.

Contractors have until 15 July to submit bids for the contract to build Apron 6 and other associated smaller aprons. According to sources in the kingdom, about 12 companies have been invited to participate in the tender.

The total area of Apron 6 and other associated works will cover about 250,000 square metres.

The apron deal is the latest of a number of construction contracts that have been tendered as part of the scheme to expand the King Abdulaziz International airport. In April, Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries (SAEI) awarded a consortium led by Turkey’s TAV Construction an estimated $800m contract to build its aircraft maintenance, repair and operation (MRO) facility at the Jeddah airport.

The main construction packages on the Jeddah airport expansion project were awarded to the local Saudi Binladin Group in 2010. Binladin was awarded two main construction contracts worth an estimated total of SR27bn ($7.2bn).The first package includes building a new terminal building, air traffic control tower and supporting facilities and the second package works include building taxiways, roads and other infrastructure.

The Jeddah airport scheme is one of a number of major airport expansion projects in the kingdom. Gaca recently invited companies to submit bids for the project management deal for the planned expansion of King Khalid International airport in Riyadh.

The expansion is expected to increase the airport’s annual capacity to about 24 million passengers from the current 14 million. The expansion scheme will involve renovating the existing Terminal 3 and the currently unused Terminal 4, as well as adding four new concourses – A, B, C and D. Gaca is also planning to build a new Terminal 5 building.