Bahrain identifies offshore plot for new airport

Bahrain is to build a new airport on reclaimed land in the north west of the country.

Alamy via Reuters | With Middle East air travel expected to surge, Bahrain aims to secure its aviation future with a new 50 million capacity airport

• Middle East passenger growth

• Brand new facility planned

• Increasing capacity levels

Just three years after the new terminal building of Bahrain International Airport was officially opened, plans are being developed for a new facility following the conclusion of a study looking into possible locations for the greenfield project.

“It’s an offshore plot of land,” Mohamed Yousif AlBinfalah, CEO of Bahrain Airport Company [BAC] told AGBI, at the Bahrain International Airshow.

“Starting that thinking process from now will give all the stakeholders involved the opportunity to look at various options and to make sure that this airport is going to be future proof,” he said.

The study was carried out by Netherlands Airport Consultants, who were awarded the $1.4 million contract to look into a site for the proposed new airport. A separate study is being carried out by the kingdom’s Ministry of Transportation, AlBinfalah said.

The new airport could increase the number of passengers in the country to 50 million annually.

BAC serves about 70 destinations, 49 by the kingdom’s flag carrier Gulf Air, with around 20 airlines operating from the airport.

The Airports Council International said in February that the Middle East had 422 million air passengers in 2023. It is expected to serve 466 million in 2024 and 510 million next year, although they acknowledge that mounting geopolitical tensions might affect regional civil aviation.

This growth is expected to accelerate in the second half of the decade as other GCC countries build new airports, including in Dubai and Riyadh.

The airport passenger terminal at Bahrain International – a 210,000 square metre site which opened its doors in 2021 at a cost of $1.1 billion – is able to handle 14 million passengers yearly.

AlBinfalah said it is currently catering for about 9.7 million people with a view to increasing that to 10 million next year.

“We have still ample capacity to grow within the existing terminal,” he said. “But even if we reach the 14 million threshold within the terminal itself, we believe that technology and operational efficiencies will take the 14 even higher.”

BAC is investing $154 million in the runway at the airport, with work scheduled to start next year.

Gavin Gibbon