Tourism & Hospitality | Friday 6 May, 2016 7:27 am |

Khalid Al-Ghamdi, director of traffic development and corporatisation at King Fahd International Airport (KFIA), said during the monthly meeting held by Asharqia Chamber recently that the rate of air traffic growth has increased significantly in recent times, with a 12.4 percent rise since 2009, against only 2.8 percent in previous years.
“In 2015, the number of air passengers was approximately 9.5 million who took a total of 84,000 international flights,” he said. Al-Ghamdi added that there are currently 33 airlines operating at the airport, making an average of 1600 weekly trips. 
“The airport is considering increasing the number of shipping flights this year from five to seven after the increase in the demand from Europe, Asia and India,” he said.
He said that in 2012, the time needed to complete travel procedures used to take 119 minutes, but last year this time was decreased to 71 minutes.
“Within the frame of the developmental plan of the airport, we aim that the number of passengers will reach about 21 million passengers in 2020, for both arrivals and departures. The current number stands at 11.5 million passengers,” he added.
He noted that the airport intends to recruit auditing companies to measure performance, with the aim of boosting the quality of services in terms of the time needed to complete travel procedures. 
On the comparison between King Fahd International Airport and Bahrain International Airport, he said: “Bahrain International Airport outshone King Fahd International Airport before 2013, but then KFIA began to overtake its growth, with the number of passengers in KFIA reaching an increase of 9.57 percent against 8.59 for the Bahraini airport. In 2014, KFIA also exceeded the growth rates of its Bahraini counterpart with similar ratios than those in 2015.”