JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman opened and toured a new terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah on Tuesday.
The airport is one of the largest in the region, with a total area of 810,000 square meters and a capacity of 30 million passengers per year.
During the tour, the king saw a presentation of the details of the airport and on civil aviation in the Kingdom.
The Minister of Transport and Chairman of the General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA), Dr. Nabil bin Mohammed Al-Amoudi, said that the Kingdom’s civil aviation sector has recently achieved qualitative leaps and creative developments that contributed to 4.6% of GDP.
Jeddah is the main airport where pilgrims arrive before travelling on to Makkah to perform the religious Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages.
Pilgrims comprise the bulk of Saudi Arabia's 20 million annual foreign visitors, apart from workers and business travellers.
He said, according to indicators by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the number of domestic and international airports doubled to 28 airports.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman toured the newly-opened terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, with a capacity to welcome 30 million passengers per yearhttps://t.co/fBUHwaHbsn pic.twitter.com/ScvLhYM2VP
— Arab News (@arabnews) September 24, 2019
“As a result, the number of passengers increased from 47 million passengers in 2010 to 100 million passengers in 2018,” the minister added.
The King Abdulaziz Airport accounted for 36% of the total number of passengers in the Kingdom.
The minister said the “objectives will be extended to contribute to the construction of a logistic platform in the Kingdom linking the three main continents of the world, as the new airport will be able to work pivotally linking East and West, and serves as an intensive collection point for the movement of passengers and goods, to become an influential position among international airports.”
The airport operates flights to three international destinations and 21 domestic ones.
The government has approved plans to issue electronic visas for foreign visitors to attend sporting events and concerts, and is expected to announce details this month.
Economic reforms aim to make the Kingdom an entertainment destination and a tourism hub. They are also trying to lift domestic and foreign tourism spending to $46.6 billion in 2020 from $27.9 billion in 2015, when the reform plan was announced.
