Look out Dubai and all the other glittering Gulf airports. Jordan’s Queen Alia International Airport is making a bid to become the Middle East’s next regional hub.
Right now a smallish and tatty facility, the first phase of a new $800 million state-of-the-art terminal is due to be completed next year, doubling the airport’s annual capacity to seven million passengers. In the years following, the aim is to increase capacity 6% annually to bring capacity up to 12 million passengers a year by 2033.
The airport’s operators are aiming for glamour as well as numbers. Designed by the firm of world renowned British architect Norman Foster, the new terminal will be topped by distinctive sculpted domed roofs that echo the shape of Jordan’s traditional Bedouin tents. Pools of water in the terminal’s courtyards are designed to reflect daylight into the building and provide passive air-cooling.
Jordan’s hub-airport ambitions come at a time of breakneck airport development in the Gulf as well as doubt about the short-to-medium term prospects for global aviation amid a sputtering global economy. Governments in the Middle East are expected to spend nearly $90 billion in aviation infrastructure development, including Dh86 billion in the Gulf over the next decades.
“With Qatar and Dubai expanding, we have overcapacity,” Christian Lambertus, managing partner of Germany-based Aviationexperts, told The Media Line. “The question in all this overcapacity is there a niche someone could benefit from. Is it Jordan? I can’t tell … You need traffic through the hub to justify the investment.”