The consortium led by Turkey’s TAV is expected to be awarded the contract to build aircraft maintenance hangars at Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah International airport after submitting the lowest bid of SR4.09bn ($1.1bn) for the project.

Other members of the consortium include local Al-Rajhi and UAE/Australian Al-Habtoor Leighton Group.

Five commercial offers were opened by General Authority for Civil Aviation (Gaca) in mid-November. It received eight bids for the deal in July.

The other commercial offers were Cyprus-based Joannou & Paraskevaides at SR5.4bn. Saudi Binladin Group at SR5.35bn, the local Al-Seif Engineering Contracting at SR5.38bn and the local Almabani with Greece’s Aktor at SR5.64bn.

The award will end a successful year for TAV in Saudi Arabia. It is leading the consortium that won the construction contract for the region’s first public-private partnership (PPP) airport project at Medina International in August. The $1.5bn first phase of the airport involves the construction of a new passenger terminal and the renovation of the existing runway (MEED 8:8:11).

For the terminal building at the airport, Netherlands-based Vanderlande Industries has won the $168m contract to supply and install the baggage-handling system. This contract is part of the overall terminal construction contract, which Saudi Binladin Group won in November 2010. SBG also won the contract, which covers the infrastructure at Jeddah airport. Together, the two contracts are worth $6.7bn.

The new terminal is expected to open in 2014.