Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Holding Company (Matarat), through the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP (NCP), has qualified five groups and one standalone company to bid for a contract to develop Prince Naif Bin Abdulaziz International airport in Qassim, Saudi Arabia.

These include:

1. YDA Insaat / Safari Group / Lamar Holding / Egis (Turkiye/local/Bahrain/France)
2. Ports Projects Management & Development Company / Algihaz Holding (local/local)
3. Mada International Holding / TAV Airports Holding (local/Turkiye)
4. Namaya International Investment Company / Oman Airports Management Company / AlBawani Capital / Tanama (local/Oman/local/UAE)
5. Vision Invest / Asyad Holding / DAA International (local/local/Ireland)
6. GMR Airports (India)

The prequalification process follows 89 firms expressing interest in the contract, as MEED reported in March.

The project scope includes the redevelopment of the passenger terminal as well as other associated facilities such as airside infrastructure, including runway, taxiways and aprons.

The project will be developed on a design-finance-construction-operations-maintenance-transfer basis.

The clients issued an expression of interest notice for the project on 9 February, and companies were given until 23 February to submit responses.

Tendering is also ongoing for the new Taif International airport project in Mecca Province.

The new Taif International airport will be located 21 kilometres southeast of the existing Taif airport and will have a capacity of 2.5 million passengers by 2030.

In addition to a new airport terminal, the proposed design features a runway with a full-length parallel taxiway connecting to a single commercial apron.

The scope includes facility buildings, utility networks, car parks and access roads, as well as provisions for additional expansions to meet future subsystem requirements.

The new airport is expected to meet the projected increase in demand by 2055 and contribute to the economic development of the city of Taif and its surrounding areas, in line with the kingdom’s National Aviation Strategy.

It is also expected to meet the needs of Umrah pilgrims, as an alternative within the region’s multi-airport system, which includes King Abdulaziz airport in Jeddah, Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz airport in Medina and Prince Abdulmohsen Bin Abdulaziz airport in Yanbu.

Previous tenders

The Taif, Hail and Qassim airport schemes were previously tendered and awarded as public-private partnership (PPP) projects using the build-transfer-operate (BTO) model.

Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) awarded the contracts to develop four airport PPP projects to two separate consortiums in 2017.

A team of Turkiye’s TAV Airports and the local Al-Rajhi Holding Group won the 30-year concession agreement to build, transfer and operate airport passenger terminals in Yanbu, Qassim and Hail.

A second team, comprising Lebanon’s Consolidated Contractors Company, Germany’s Munich Airport International and local firm Asyad Group, won the BTO contract to develop Taif International airport.

However, these projects stalled following the restructuring of the kingdom’s aviation sector.

Saudi Arabia has already privatised airports including the $1.2bn Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz International airport in Medina, which was developed as a PPP and opened in 2015.