Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Civil Aviation (Gaca) has floated new tenders to expand two domestic airports in the country.

The first tender is for the expansion of Qassim airport, which will involve the construction of a new terminal building along with other airport infrastructure such as a control tower, car parks and a mosque. The deadline for bids is 27 March.

The second tender is for the expansion of Al-Jouf airport, which will also entail construction of a new terminal and related airport infrastructure. The deadline for bids is 25 March.

The projects are part of several regional airports being developed by Gaca, including airports in Abha, Jizan, Al-Baha, and Tabuk.

Earlier this month, the local Al-Jaber submitted a low bid of SR1.8bn ($480m) for the contract to build the new Abha airport. Al-Jaber’s price is about five per cent lower than the second lowest price of SR1.9bn submitted by the local Al-Mabani General Contractors. The third lowest bidder is Kuwait First Group, with a price of SR2bn.

The new terminal will cover a total area of 80,000 square metres and have 21 passenger gates. In addition to the terminal building, the contract will involve building other airport infrastructure, including a control tower, car parks and facilities such as mosques.

In June 2013, Gaca received bids from 17 groups for the contract to build the new King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz airport in Jizan. The scheme will involve building a three-storey passenger terminal, a control tower, air cargo zones and other facilities. The terminal will have 10 gates and a VIP lounge.

A consortium of Saudi Lebanese Modern Construction Company (Salmoc), Safari and Safari & Salmoc and Al-Subaie (all local) submitted the low bid of SR2.57bn ($685m). This was 7 per cent less than the SR2.76bn price submitted by the second-lowest bidder, the local Saudi Pan Kingdom Company (Sapac).

Bids are also being assessed for the contract to build Tabuk airport.

A much larger project is King Khalid International airport. In 2013, Gaca invited nine contracting groups to bid for the contract to expand the existing terminals 3 and 4 at the airport in Riyadh. The tender closing date is 27 February.

The prequalifiers include:

• Sapac (local)/ Samsung C&T (South Korea)
• Al-Arrab Contracting (local)/TAV (Turkey)
• Saudi Binladin (local)
• Al-Mabani General Contractors (local)/ Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) (Athens-based)
• El-Seif Engineering Contracting Company/ Larsen & Toubro (India)/ Besix (Belgium)
• Al-Yamama (local)/Habtoor Leighton Group(UAE/Australia)
• Al-Bawani (local)/J&P (Joannou & Paraskevaides) (Cyprus)
• Hochtief (Germany)/Shapoorji Pallonji (India)
• FCC Construcciones (Spain)/Drake & Scull (UAE)

In February 2013, the local arm of US-based Aecom, Aecom Arabia, was appointed to project manage the expansion scheme. The work aims to increase the airport’s annual capacity to 24 million passengers from the today’s 14 million.

In May 2013, Gaca awarded the joint venture of Turkey’s TAV and the local Al-Arrab Contracting Company the estimated SR1.5bn ($400m) contract to build the new Terminal 5 building at King Khalid International.