JEDDAH, 10 April 2003 — Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, yesterday inaugurated Dawadmi Airport in the Central Province and named it after Riyadh Governor Prince Salman.
“In appreciation of the services rendered by Prince Salman to the people of the Riyadh region and other parts of the country, I request the permission of the Presidency of Civil Aviation to name the airport after him,” Prince Sultan said in his short inaugural address.
The opening ceremony was attended by Prince Salman, Prince Fahd ibn Abdullah, assistant defense and aviation minister for civil aviation affairs, Dr. Ali Al-Khalaf, head of the presidency, and other high-ranking officials.
Established at a cost of SR150 million, the airport is designed to handle one million passengers a year. It will serve more than 400 towns and villages in the region.
Saudi Arabian Airlines operated its first flight to Dawadmi on April 2, carrying 67 passengers from Jeddah. The Governor of Dawadmi, Saud ibn Muhammad Al-Hilal said the opening of the new airport would speed up the overall development of the city and its surrounding areas, which is home to some 400,000 people.
Dawadmi, located 250 km west of Riyadh, is the third civilian airport in the Riyadh region and 27th in the Kingdom. Saudia will initially operate four flights weekly to Dawadmi, two each from Jeddah and Riyadh.
The airport is located 21 km from the city.
According to Al-Khalaf, the Kingdom has spent more than SR50 billion ($13.3 billion) on airport construction and expansion over the past two decades.
There are three international airports in the Kingdom. King Fahd International Airport in Dammam is the largest, with the capacity to handle 16 million passengers by 2005. The airport’s cargo facility can handle 176,000 tons of freight per year.
Efforts are currently under way to expand King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah at a cost of $1.5 billion to increase its annual capacity from 13 million to 21 million passengers.
Work on the expansion project will start next year and will be completed by the fall of 2010.
Meanwhile, Prince Sultan laid the foundation stone for a vocational training center in Dawadmi. The General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training, plans to establish 19 vocational training centers in various parts of the country.
Dr. Ali Al-Ghafees, governor of the organization, said the project to establish the 19 centers will cost SR200 million. The organization supervises about 500 educational and training centers providing training to more than 100,000 students in fields such as computer science, telecommunications and information technology.
“These centers are run with the support of the government, the Manpower Development Fund, the chambers of commerce and industry and private companies,” the governor said.
