Two firms compete for Jeddah airport contract

04 August 2016

Offers were submitted on 20 July

A joint venture of France’s Aeroports de Paris Management (ADPM) and Saudi Binladin Group and Singapore’s Changi Airports International have submitted an offer for the contract to operate and maintain (O&M) Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International airport (KAIA), Saudi Arabia’s busiest airport.

A source familiar with the transaction said they expect an award “in early August.”

Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad (Malaysia) did not submit an offer despite having been prequalified for the contract.

Germany’s Fraport, the former O&M contract holder, also did not submit an offer.

Fraport and Changi Airports International both signed O&M contracts with Gaca in 2008. Fraport was awarded a $111.3m deal to manage KAIA and Riyadh’s King Khaled International airport (KKIA), while Changi Airports International won a $42.5m contract to manage King Fahd International airport (KFIA) in Dammam.

The deals expired in 2014, although Gaca extended its contract with Changi Airports International for seven months.

KAIA is Saudi Arabia’s largest airport in terms of passenger traffic; it handled 30.1 million passengers in 2015, a 7.4 per cent rise compared with the previous year.

The masterplan for KAIA envisages increasing its capacity to up to 43 million passengers a year by 2025 and 80 million passengers annually by 2035.

Ongoing expansion work at the airport is expected to be completed by 2017.

Appointing a private airport operator for KAIA is consistent with Gaca’s plan to privatise all of the kingdom’s airports by 2020.

The kingdom’s and the region’s first full-fledged airport public-private partnership (PPP), Medina’s Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz International airport, entered full operations in June 2015.

 

 

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