Kuwait International Airport (KIA) Expansion

Kuwait International Airport (KIA) is located in Farwaniya, 16km south of Kuwait City, the capital of Kuwait. The airport is a military-cum-public airport and houses Kuwait Air Force headquarters and Al Mubarak Air Base located at a portion of the airport. A Kuwait Air Force museum is also present at the airport complex. The airport is operated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The airport handled more than seven million passengers in 2008 but steep rise in the passenger numbers and air traffic in the succeeding year resulted in the airport handling nearly 11 million passengers from January to September 2009.

The increased growth of traffic and passengers at the airport led to its expansion, which includes the construction of a new terminal and a new runway, reconstruction and extension of the existing runways, construction of a taxiway, aircraft stands and upgrade of other airport infrastructure. The project is being executed by the DGCA and funded by the Kuwait Government. The estimated cost of the expansion is KD600m ($2.1bn).
The latest $2.1bn expansion project features two phases to be executed at different time periods. Phase I will see construction of a new terminal and upgrade of airfield infrastructure. The new terminal is anticipated to be complete by November 2016 and is expected to handle 13 million passengers per year.
The new terminal will be christened terminal 2 or Kuwait airways terminal. The new U-shaped terminal will spread over an area of 90,000m2 and will feature 30 gates. It will be located to the south of the existing terminal. It will be linked to the existing terminal through a new tunnel.

The airport will have eight gates capable of handling A380 aircraft. The airport is planned to reach the projected capacity of 20 million passengers a year after the new terminal becomes operational.
Also included in phase I is the extension of the runways at the airport. Once the airport's western runway is extended to 4,775m, it will be the seventh longest runway in the world capable of handling the A380 aircraft. The other runway is planned to be 4,000m long. A new third runway is also planned to be constructed to the west of the airport. New aircraft parking spaces, a headquarters for the Directorate and additional taxiing roads are also included in this phase. Phase II (currently in the conceptual stage) will take the capacity of the airport to 55 million passengers a year. The expansion, however, will be executed in future when the airport will witness further growth in air traffic and passenger numbers. Phase II also includes construction of new passenger terminals and other infrastructure facilities.

The UK-based Foster & Partners won the contract worth KD19m ($66.7m) for the design of the new terminal at the airport. The terminal is being constructed at an estimated cost of KD213m ($748m).

Two bidders have been short-listed for the contract to build a runway, aircraft hangars and roads at the airport. The first among them is a group of Alghanim International General Trading & Contracting Company (Kuwait) and Gulf Leighton (Australia) which bid an amount of KD140m ($491m) for the project.