Al-Madina THE date for opening the new state-of-the-art King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) in Jeddah is fast approaching and this is very good news. What we want to know now is the exact date for the happy occasion, which we have been waiting for long. On April 30, 2017, Transport Minister Sulaiman Al-Hamdan, who is also president of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), announced that the Singaporean Changi Airport Group has been awarded the contract to operate KAIA for 20 years. The agreement comes as part of a strategic partnership between GACA and the Changi. The minister also pointed out that experimental operation of the new airport would start in the middle of 2018, which coincides with the next Haj season. According to Al-Hamdan, 88 percent of the multibillion riyal project has been completed. At the same time, Al-Hayat Arabic newspaper published a report on June 1, quoting a GACA official, saying the KAIA opening would take place in the beginning of 2018, which means five months before the date given by the president. We don't know which of the two dates is correct. But the minister has pointed out that 12 percent of the project is yet to be completed. It's a big percentage for a massive project like KAIA. In this case, I would like to assume the date given by the minister as correct, especially when in keeping mind the fact the schedules are not honored on many occasions. We have to be patient as usual and should not take hurried decisions. My fear is that a quarter of the Singaporeans will go away, leaving behind the crisis of managing a massive airport. I am also happy to learn the Jeddah municipality's decision to give a facelift to the area around the new airport to impress foreign visitors. We look forward to a glittering 21st century replacing the backward and painful scenes of the 17th century. I would like to commend the municipality for its bold initiative to implement such an important project with the support of the Jeddah governorate. It has started demolishing old workshops around the airport area and removing the debris as part of efforts as part of the project's various phases. The project may take a long time to complete and we have to wait. The present condition of the airport's surroundings is acceptable temporarily but it will not be the same when flights start taking off from the new airport. We have heard and read about an excellent plan to develop the region around the airport, but such a plan should not be limited to constructing more buildings and roads like what happens all over the Kingdom, especially in its major cities. We hope the new project would give a facelift to the whole region, making it impressive to citizens as well as visitors. Let's wait and see how it would look like and how it's going to change the environment around the new airport, the main gateway of pilgrims to Makkah.
