The General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA) has cancelled the bid for the contract to operate and maintain (O&M) the King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) in Jeddah. Two bids were received on 20 July, one from a consortium consisting of France’s Aeorports de Paris Managements (ADPM)-Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) and the other from Singapore’s Changi Airports International. Appointing a private airport operator for KAIA was seen as consistent with GACA’s plan to privatise the Kingdom’s airports by 2020. It remains to be seen whether the bid was cancelled or if a new tender would be released soon. KAIA is Saudi Arabia’s largest airport, in terms of passenger traffic. It handled 30.1mn passengers in 2015 (+7.4% Y-o-Y). The master plan for KAIA envisages increasing its capacity to up to 43mn passengers annually by 2025 and 80mn passengers annually by 2035. (MEED)