Hamdan, who is also chairman of the board of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), approved the new design work to develop Abha Regional Airport into a hub to serve the Kingdom's southern region. The capacity of the airport would be increased from 1.5 million to 13 million passengers in a year with the completion of the ongoing expansion work. He said that GACA's strategy is to operate the airport as a hub for the southern region as a whole, the Saudi Press Agency reported. GACA started operating Abha as regional hub since the beginning of this month after choosing Nas Air to be the national carrier for the southern part of the country. The airline started services between Abha and other local airports in the region such as Al-Baha, Jazan, Bisha and Wadi Al-Dawasir from Nov. 1. This resulted in an increase of five percent in the number of passengers using Abha airport within a short span. Several passengers expressed satisfaction over the decision of GACA to make Abha a regional hub for air traffic. It is noteworthy that Abha is the second hub airport in the Kingdom after Hail was chosen as the first hub for the passengers in the northern region recently. This is part of an ambitious national project for hub airports implemented by GACA in line with the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, according to GACA sources. The project aims at reinforcing certain air routes that have low traffic as well as finding solutions to traffic woes through making available of air traffic services for local travelers all over the Kingdom. GACA's objectives also include provision of more choices for passengers and improve the quality of services at the airports by making available of opportunities for passengers to reach their destinations through hub airports. This will also be instrumental in increasing the frequency of services to and from main airports in the Kingdom.
