Saudi Arabia’s King Salman International Airport Development Company (KSIADC) has selected three groups for the construction of Terminal 6 at King Salman International airport (KSIA) in Riyadh.

The selected groups include:

• UCC / CCC (Qatar/Greece)
• Al-Gihaz Holding / TAV / WeBuild (local/Turkiye/Italy)
• PowerChina / MBL (China/local)

MEED understands that the ECI timeframe will be around six months. The ECI process requires selected contractors to submit methodologies for the project and a design proposal. One team will then be selected for the construction.

In November last year, MEED exclusively reported that KSIADC was targeting mid-2026 to award the contract for the construction of Terminal 6 at KSIA in Riyadh.

In July last year, MEED exclusively reported that several contractor consortiums had submitted proposals for a contract to develop the first phase of Terminal 6 and the Iconic Terminal at KSIA.

MEED reported in May last year that US firm Bechtel Corporation had been appointed as the delivery partner for the terminals at KSIA.

According to local media reports, KSIADC’s acting CEO, Marco Mejia, said the project developer had completed the project’s masterplan. The reports added that Terminal 6 will boost the airport’s capacity by 40 million passengers.

The project is expected to be delivered before the start of the Expo 2030 Riyadh event.

Project scale

The project covers an area of about 57 square kilometres (sq km), allowing for six parallel runways, and will include the existing terminals at King Khalid International airport. It will also include 12 sq km of airport support facilities, residential and recreational facilities, retail outlets and other logistics real estate.

If the project is completed on time in 2030, it will become the world’s largest operating airport in terms of passenger capacity, according to UK analytics firm GlobalData.

The airport aims to accommodate up to 120 million passengers by 2030 and 185 million by 2050. The goal for cargo is to process 3.5 million tonnes a year by 2050.

Saudi Arabia plans to invest $100bn in its aviation sector. Riyadh’s Saudi Aviation Strategy, announced by the General Authority of Civil Aviation, aims to triple Saudi Arabia’s annual passenger traffic to 330 million travellers by 2030.

It also aims to increase air cargo traffic to 4.5 million tonnes and raise the country’s total air connections to more than 250 destinations.