Jeddah Airport to fly high with new revamp

May 3, 2015

Jeddah, May 3: The 30-year-old King Abdul Aziz International Airport (KAIA) is undergoing a massive overhaul that would further entrench its leading status in the region and the world.

KAIA

The first phase saw two main contracts signed on November 13, 2010, to expand the facility as the main gateway to Jeddah and the Two Holy Mosques. Jeddah, of course, is an economic powerhouse and one of the most important cities in the Middle East.

The KAIA is currently enjoying substantial growth in air traffic. It is already the Kingdom’s busiest airport, serving approximately 41 percent of all passengers.

The parameters for the expansion project include catering for an expected rise in air traffic, supporting economic developments in Makkah and other regions, accommodating the new generation of jumbo aircraft such as the A380 and becoming a regional travel hub.

The government also plans to ensure that there are opportunities for private sector companies, and the provision of services for travelers that would rank with leading airports around the globe.

The project consists of three phases, but most of the basic infrastructure construction will take place over the first phase, with the capacity increased to handle 30 million passengers. After completion of the second phase, it will be able to handle 50 million passengers, and 80 million following the third phase.

The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has said that the project is going well and nearly 70 percent complete. The entire project is expected to be ready by the middle of 2016. This would be followed immediately by a commissioning phase, or operational testing, to ensure that the airport’s systems are functioning optimally.

There are about 110 companies active on the KAIA project, incorporating around 26,000 engineers and workers, with approximately 2,600 pieces of equipment and machinery.

The significant progress on the expansion has been achieved because of the close cooperation between the Ministry of Transport, Makkah emirate and companies currently involved in building bridges, roads and the Haramain High-Speed Railway.

The construction at the airport has taken place with minimal obstruction of facilities and services for millions of passengers, particularly during holidays and other peak times.

For example, the project’s contractors have not used any of the roads leading to the terminals. And to avoid affecting the movement of traffic around the airport, 30 central concrete mixers have been set up inside the project site.

Most of the new airport systems and facilities have either been completed or are in the final stages. For instance, the testing of the baggage handling system, which is computerized and delivers luggage from check-in counters to aircraft in just 9 minutes without human intervention, has already commenced.

The system is one of the world’s most advanced and will comprise 31-km-long conveyor belts, 62 self check-in machines, 46 control units, 230 standard check-in counters, 11 bulky baggage processing counters, 16 baggage claim belts, and 16 transit baggage processing counters.

The first phase facilities include a terminals complex over 720,000 square meters, allowing all airlines to operate under one roof; 46 gates for international and domestic flights; and 94 air bridges for serving aircraft of different sizes.

There will be five lounges for first class and business class passengers — two for departing international flights and two for departing domestic flights — while the fifth is for other passengers proceeding on international and domestic flights.

There will be a 136-meter-high control tower, one of the tallest in the world, and a 27,987-square-meter area inside the terminal complex for commercial investment.

The contractors will also complete a mosque for about 3,000 people, with an outdoor prayer yard over 2,450 square meters and an upper level that has the capacity for 700 females.

Other facilities include 220 passenger-processing counters and 80 self-service machines. There will also be an automatic train system for international flight passengers inside the terminals complex.

There will be aprons and taxiways over 2.1 million square meters, air conditioning systems, fire-extinguishing facilities, sanitation and rainwater drainage networks.

Also under construction is a four-level short-term car park for 8,200 vehicles equipped with advanced electronic systems to enable drivers to locate their cars. There are also long-term car parks for 4,356 vehicles, a parking area for 48 buses, a section for 651 taxis, a space for 1,243 rental cars, and 9,123 parking spaces for airport employees.

Other facilities include a 4-star, 120-room hotel for transit passengers, a firefighting and rescue station, two integrated information centers connected with fiber optic cables, a 9,327-meter-long service tunnel and a 46-km-long service corridor linking all load centers.

There will also be an aircraft fuel farm with tanks and a distribution network, ground services and maintenance buildings, a nursery for airport landscaping works, and a 36.5-km road network, including several tunnels and bridges.

The new airport will be able to serve 70 aircraft at the same time. There will be temporary aircraft parking spaces located around the terminal complex to accommodate 28 aircraft. Fuel and water will be supplied through underground pipes.

A feature of the new airport is the architecture, which combines elements of Arab and Islamic designs. There will be green spaces around and inside the terminal complex. There is currently construction taking place on a park over 18,000 square meters, with a 14-meter-high and 10-meter-wide aquarium.

Some of the environment-friendly features at the airport include the use of treated wastewater for irrigation and toilets, energy saving lighting in the airport terminals and airfield instead of halogen to reduce thermal emissions, with a 20-year lifespan.

The new KAIA project has also been an opportunity for the government to train new Saudi graduate engineers across all engineering disciplines. The aim is to skill them for their chosen jobs.

The current terminals in the south and north will gradually be phased out. The South Terminal, or Saudi Airlines Terminal, will be transformed into a cargo facility.

The Haj and Umrah terminals complex will remain in place because upgrades were completed in 2009. This means the complex will be able to handle the predicted rise in passengers over the next 20 years.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
November 13,2024

lebenonstrikes.jpg

Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
November 12,2024

lebanon.jpg

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon has warned that the “picture of life in Lebanon remains grim,” highlighting an "alarming" level of human suffering and significant humanitarian consequences due to the ongoing Israeli carnage.

Imran Riza, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL), provided a stark overview of the Arab country's dire circumstances in a statement released on Monday.

“The current picture of life in Lebanon remains grim. Yesterday, airstrikes reportedly killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Aalmat in Mount Lebanon,” Riza said on X.

An airstrike in the city of Tyre on the same day resulted in the tragic deaths of five siblings from a single family, all of whom had special needs, according to his statement.

He added that in the last week, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 241 individuals and left 642 others injured in Lebanon, as reported by the Ministry of Health.

“In the past month, more than 185,000 people have fled their homes in their search for safety within the country, bringing the total to over 870,000 people internally displaced,” Riza said

The UN official highlighted that numerous individuals, including the elderly and those with health issues, are staying behind while witnessing the ruins of their ancestral homes.

He urged for the swift safeguarding of civilian people and infrastructure, emphasizing the necessity to uphold international humanitarian law and end the ongoing violence.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that Israeli forces bombed a house in the town of Maydoun in Bekaa on Monday night, killing three people and destroying the house.

Earlier, Israel bombed the northern town of Ain Yaaqoub, killing at least 14 people.

The killings came as Israeli military continued to pound Lebanon, bombing shops selling electrical appliances in the southern city of Tyre and carrying out air raids on the towns of Shamshtar in eastern Baalbek and Roumine in southern Nabatieh.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said Israeli attacks killed at least 54 people across the country on Monday.

Israel’s merciless attacks continue despite calls from the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and directives from the International Court of Justice urging measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and Lebanon.

In Lebanon, at least 3,243 people have been killed and 14,134 others wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.

The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah opened a support front for Palestinians in Gaza only a day after the Israeli regime unleashed its genocidal war on the besieged territory.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
November 7,2024

lebanon.jpg

The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.