Abu Dhabi: Governments in the Middle East are expected to spend nearly Dh331 billion in aviation infrastructure development, including Dh86 billion in the GCC states, in the next few decades.
An additional Dh106 billion in various segments of this sector is under consideration, industry experts in Middle East said.
On the regional front, Saudi Arabia intends to invest approximately Dh27 billion in its new airport project. In Oman, the Muscat and Salalah airports are being developed at a cost of Dh1.2 billion to handle 48 million and 10 million passengers annually.
Facing an increase in cargo and passenger traffic, Kuwait is investing Dh172 million in its airport expansion programme, and Qatar is aiming to boost to its aviation infrastructure at a cost of Dh4 billion.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Rihan, executive director of industry affairs and training at the Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO) told Gulf News, "The cost of airport developments in the Arab world amounted to $60 billion (Dh220.35 billion) in infrastructure and improvement in capacities. The UAE spent $21 billion for airport development."
Rihan was speaking after a gathering hosted by the London-based Global Transport Forum. He warned that there was no match between the pace of growth of passenger traffic and the expansion of airports in the Arab world.
High air traffic growth
"Arab airports will reach a capacity of 400 million passengers after the development processes are completed," Rihan said, adding that revenues during 2010 amounted to Dh19 billion.
"In 2010, 119 million passengers travelled through Arab airports," he said, pointing out that the number of employees in these airports reached 135,000.
Emerging economies are experiencing high air traffic growth and will do so for the next decades, said Alex Wiliamson, managing director of Global Transport Forum.
"The immediate need is to build new runways and modern infrastructure in order to reduce bottlenecks [especially in high-traffic areas such as Mena] and improve the overall passenger experience," said Williamson.
Nasser Juma, vice-president of Air Navigation Services at the Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) said the UAE is a booming country, and this is reflected in its daily flights.
"In 2010, the daily movements in the UAE amounted to 307, and this year it is expected to reach 365 per day. In 2020, the movements will go up to 439 per day and in 2030, it will reach 598 per day," said Juma.
Abu Dhabi has adopted an aviation system which helps control air traffic, and increase capacity of the airport to 40 million passengers per year, he added.
The UAE airports have announced investments worth billions of dollars for airport expansion and improvement programmes.
Dubai Airports announced recently its 2020 strategy plan which includes investments worth over Dh28.4 billion to implement the fourth phase of Dubai Airport expansion and increase the airport's capacity to over 90 million passengers annually to meet the future growth needs.
Catching up
ADAC announced investments to the tune of Dh24.8 billion to improve the Abu Dhabi airport and the capacity to 40 million passengers a year.
The completion of the project is expected to be in 2015-2016.
Mohammad Bader-Eddin, show director at Reed Exhibitions which organises the Airport Show in Dubai, said: "As the global crises set in a few years back, the airport industry went into a deep depression. However, the industry is catching up."
