Kuwait spends US$6bn doubling airport\'s capacity

Kuwait’s government will spend US$6bn to almost double the number of passengers its international airport is able to handle by the end of 2016, the head of the country’s aviation regulator said. Work will begin this year on adding a terminal and renovating infrastructure to raise capacity to 13m passengers, Kuwait Civil Aviation President Fawaz Abdul-Aziz Al- Farah told reporters in Dubai today. The airport, which is built to handle 7m travelers a year, received 8.5m passengers in 2011, and the figure may exceed 9m this year, he said. The expansion is part of Kuwait’s US$111bn four-year development plan announced in February 2010 to build a subway and rail network, expand the airport and construct power stations, hospitals, roads and a port for the nation of 3.7m people. Neighboring Qatar and the UAE are building airports and expanding existing ones to accommodate growth in travel. Kuwait International Airport’s capacity may be expanded to 25m passengers by 2025 and 50mpeople by 2035, Al- Farah said. The emirate’s main carriers are Jazeera Airways, a low-cost operator, and state-owned Kuwait Airways.