Jordan green-lights $750 million airport expansion

The planned revamp of QAIA

A MENA aviation conference has revealed that Jordan is planning an $750 million redevelopment of Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) in the country's capital, increasing the airport's capacity to 21 million passengers.

Announced by Curtis Grad, the CEO of the Airport International Group on the last day of 'Low Cost Airlines World MENA 2009', a conference aimed at providing innovation and opportunity for "traditional and low cost carriers and investors".

In a statement to Al Bawaba, Grad said, "We expect Phase I of this terminal to be ready by early 2012. It will have a capacity to handle 9 million passengers.

"The Phase II will be able to handle additional 12 million passengers. We are looking at inbound traffic from Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Dubai and Sharjah and other parts of GCC markets to link up with QAIA and benefit from it."

Currently, six Low Cost Carriers use QAIA for arrival and departures totalling 80 flights a week to Ammam. The LCCs are Air Arabia, Jazeera Airways, Bahrain Air, Sama Airlines, Nas Air and Fly Dubai.

Whilst it may seem a low number of flights compared to the world's larger airports, QAIA has witnessed a 15 percent increase in flight volumes, a 10 percent increase in passengers during summer peak and a 4 percent increase in passenger numbers.

The rest of the conference saw the likes of Tim Coombs, Managing Director of Aviation Economics Ltd., state that the barriers to start up LCCs will remain low considering that an airline operating 5 A320 aircraft can be set up with capital of just $10 million.

"The LCC model is well understood, easily copied and globally transferable today. And Hedge Funds / Private Equity industry has surplus funds of $150 billion. It is easy to start LCC even today," he said.

He said that the development of 17 open-skies bilateral agreements between a number of Arab Civil Aviation Commission is an important step for LCCs further success in the region.

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