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Design competition planned for Jeddah airport

21 June 2023

A design competition for the new Terminal 2 planned for Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International airport (KAIA) is expected by the end of this year.

Leading international architects will be invited to take part in the competition.

London-based Foster & Partners has designed two airports in Saudi Arabia in recent years. The firm designed the airport at the Red Sea Project for Red Sea Global and, more recently, designed the masterplan for King Salman International airport in Riyadh. 

The Terminal 2 project in Jeddah is part of an estimated SR115bn ($31bn) expansion plan to make KAIA one of the world’s largest airports by increasing its capacity to 114 million passengers a year.

According to sources close to the project, the design competition for Terminal 2 will be managed by gigaproject developer Roshn, which is developing real estate around the airport. It is also working, along with other entities including Jeddah Airports Company (Jedco), on the plans for the new terminal building.

The Terminal 2 project aims to almost triple the airport’s 40 million a year passenger limit.

Due to start in 2026 and end by 2031, the project will involve constructing a completely new terminal building with dozens of gates, new taxiways, aprons, roads, utilities, and baggage handling and other software systems. It is likely to be worth more than $10bn to build.

Terminal upgrade

An expansion to the existing Terminal 1 is also planned. That project comprises basic infrastructure and enabling works, the installation of new gates, air bridges and parking aprons, the extension of the automatic people mover, new baggage conveyor systems and lounges to increase annual passenger capacity by 15 million.

There are also plans to construct a fourth runway starting in 2025 and completing by 2029 to cope with the increased traffic. Due to space limitations, the new runway will require substantive infrastructure relocation work to accommodate it.

A new Hajj and Umrah terminal is also planned. Pilgrims comprise a large portion of passenger traffic, and the new arrivals and departures hall for budget airlines will be able to handle 15 million passengers a year. The project is expected to be completed by 2025.

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Colin Foreman

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