Kuwait’s civil aviation directorate announced on Tuesday that the Gulf Arab state would spend $6bn to expand its international airport to handle 13 million passengers by 2016.
The current passenger terminal was built in 1980 and has the capacity to handle around seven million passengers a year, said Fawaz al Farah, speaking on the sidelines of the airport show in Dubai. He added that capacity would be increased further to 25 million by the year 2025.
Kuwait’s national airlines and the privately owned, low-cost Al Jazeera Airways currently operate out of the airport and al Farah said that in 2011 more than 8.5 million passengers passed through the gates. He added that more than nine million passengers are expected this year.
The plan is to expand the passenger terminal to occupy 710,000m2 and will cost $3bn to do so. The other $3bn will be spent on other projects at the airport, including widening the runways, building a new control tower and a new cargo town, al Farah said in a report carried by the Associated Free Press.