Why AlUla airport expansion is key to KSA’s vision to host the world

Visitors from around the world are being drawn to AlUla by our connection with history, which led its 1st century B.C. rock tomb site to become Saudi Arabia’s first UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site in 2008. Transport is central to that history — and also to our future as a leading global destination for cultural and natural heritage.

Centuries ago travelers from across the region traveled across northwest Arabia as they worked the spice and incense routes. We see evidence of their presence in the rock art that they left as records of their journeys. Today business people travel by plane rather than by camel caravan.

But while they do not leave any rock art behind, they leave their mark on the landscape in a different way — the runways that are being built to allow journeys from much further afield.

We at the Royal Commission for AlUla believe that in line with the Saudi aviation strategy as well as our own ambitious goals, AlUla’s airport must continue to expand.

Last March, its capacity quadrupled to 400,000 travelers a year and we now have flights from Paris and Dubai. But the airport’s capacity must continue to grow as the area gains wider recognition.

This is not just an AlUla phenomenon, it is a phenomenon that spans the Kingdom and provides concrete evidence that KSA is becoming more connected with the wider world. Besides the plans to expand AlUla airport, Saudi projects in the sector include large-scale airport expansions at Riyadh and Jeddah and the construction of new hubs to serve the NEOM, Red Sea and AMAALA developments.

This supports the ambitious aviation strategy, which has privatization at its heart. It plans to extend KSA’s connectivity from 99 to more than 250 destinations across 29 airports, tripling annual passenger traffic to 330 million — including two global long-haul connecting hubs — and increasing air cargo capacity to 4.5m tons by 2030.

This aviation strategy has gained new momentum thanks to the inaugural Future Aviation Forum, held in Riyadh between May 9 and 11, which gathered hundreds of business leaders and regulators from across the world to discuss sustainability, passenger experience and the airline business.

RCU took part in the forum and signed two important agreements for the future of AlUla’s airport, intended to improve the passenger experience at AlUla International Airport.

It is agreements such as this that will enable AlUla’s airport to progress from what it is now — friendly and comfortable, but with limited connections and few retail options — to what it must become. And that is something else entirely, RCU’s objective is to host 2 million visitors a year at the “living museum” that AlUla will be by 2035.

This increased traffic in tourists will also lead to related traffic in educators, engineers, film crews, heritage specialists, hoteliers, logistics teams and other workers who will be drawn to AlUla as we push to create 38,000 new jobs by 2035. This is why we believe the airport’s capacity needs to hit 5 million passengers a year by 2035.

Our vision for the airport is that it should be the extraordinary gateway to the area as a “living museum.” Our mission is to deliver an exceptional experience and run an efficient aviation system to allow for the sustainable development of AlUla and drive its logistics potential.

Our outline for the future is as follows. By 2035, AlUla International Airport is expected to handle 4.5 million passengers and 22,000 tons of cargo per year, as well as host a growing private and leisure aviation business.

The airport will have to be upgraded including new passenger, cargo, private and leisure aviation terminals, as well as expanded accesses, aprons and taxiways. This expansion will see major capital and maintenance spending. Profitability for the airport will be clearer in the long term than in the short term.

This is a long-haul project with a long-term payoff, one that combines our aspirations for the future with our heritage from the past.

And that aspiration is to make AlUla once again a hub for travelers in northwest Arabia — just as it was so long ago.

• Moataz Kurdi is chief of county operations, zoning and planning officer at The Royal Commission for AlUla.