The Council of Ministers on July 19 commended the efforts of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) to expand King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, the main gateway of Hajj pilgrims to the Kingdom. The KAIA expansion project aims to establish a modern airport with an initial capacity of handling 30 million passengers and an ultimate capacity of 80 million passengers and three million tons of cargo per year.
The new airport will have a single passenger terminal for both Saudi Arabian Airlines and foreign airlines and will cover an area of 678,000 square meters, replacing the existing North and South Terminals. The Cabinet statement did not say when the new airport project would start. But Crown Prince Sultan, deputy premier and minister of defence and aviation and GACA’s chairman, said the project is ready for the approval of higher authorities.