BIA expansion on track, to be completed in 2019

Manama : The US$1.1 billion expansion of Bahrain International Airport (BIA) is on track to be completed in 2019, Bahrain Airport Company (BAC) Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Yousif Al Binfalah said yesterday during the Bahrain International Airport Development Forum.

A number of regional and international aviation experts and leading airport and logistics professionals attended the two-day conference at Mövenpick Hotel yesterday morning. 

The BAC chief said the modernisation project aims to increase the airport capacity to 14 million passengers a year. A new passenger terminal, four times the size of the existing one, is included in the expansion plan. 

Speaking to DT News on the sidelines of the event, he said, “This is a transformational project; it will elevate the passenger experience. We are also taking a number of measures to improve the existing facilities and delivering both initiatives simultaneously. The new terminal is being designed for 14 million passengers, the current existing terminal is designed for four million, but we are processing almost nine million currently.”

“The new terminal is being built to the east of the existing building. It will be built following international sustainability guidelines. The most recognised one in the industry is the US Green Building Council LEED certification and we are targeting gold certification. Today we are expected to receive the last tender in this project which is the ICT tender,” he said.

When asked if there is an increased threat of cyber attacks for airports recently, he said “Not that we are aware of, we have our own infrastructure that deals with cyber attacks, we are a certified organisation when it comes these matters.”

The two-day conference was organised by Arabian Reach in association with BAC under the patronage of Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications Kamal Ahmed.  Other speakers at the forum included representatives from Transportation and Telecommunications Ministry, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Bahrain Airport Services, Arabtec- TAV JV, Hill International, SITA, GBM, Kone Elevators & Escalators, CISCO and CEM Systems.

According to a statement issued by BAC, the event serves to showcase the Kingdom’s ambitious airport modernisation plans and reiterate the country’s significance as a strategic access point to the Gulf’s trillion-dollar market, highlighting BIA’s unparalleled regional connectivity and competitiveness as a major multimodal logistics hub.