JEDDAH:Dr. Khaled Ben-Bakr, director general of Saudi Arabian Airlines, formally launched the national carrier’s automatic boarding pass system at King Abdul Aziz Airport this week.  “Now all passengers traveling on domestic flights can get their boarding passes without waiting at counters or approaching staff,” Ben-Bakr said. Some 8,000 passengers already used the system during its trial phase in the last 10 days. The facility will be available in Riyadh next month.

BAHRAIN: Gulf Air is to open a first class lounge at Heathrow Airport in London and will introduce more direct flights to the city from various Gulf points.  Gulf Air's programme to position its brand competitively is meeting with tremendous success, said president and chief executive James Hogan. "The first-class lounge opened at Bahrain International Airport last month is one of the best of its kind in the world," he revealed. "We are now opening a second such world-class lounge at Heathrow Airport in July this year.”

DOHA:Leading airport and aviation suppliers across the globe will participate in the Airport Build and Supply Exhibition being held in Dubai in June with a view to capitalise on major airport development programmes in the Middle East, including the $5billion Doha International Airport project. Decision makers for airport projects worth an estimated $5.72 billion across the Middle East and North Africa alone have already confirmed their participation at the show being held from June 7 to 9, according to a statement.

MANAMA: Gulf Air says it is setting new standards in travel comfort with the opening of its new lounge at the Bahrain International Airport. With the airport experience around the world now more stressful than ever, Gulf Air has taken a major step towards reducing traveller tension, said president and chief executive James Hogan. The state-of-the-art dedicated lounge for First and Business Class passengers has set a new standard in terms of contemporary design and product features, he said.

TEHRAN: Iran has opened a new international airport serving the capital, Tehran, some three decades and more than $475 million after the project began. The Imam Khomenini International Airport, 45 kilometres south of Tehran, was opened to mark the 25^th anniversary of the return from exile in France of the late founding father of the Islamic Republic Ayatolah Ruhollah Khomeini. The airport complex, only the first phase of which has been completed, will have a capacity to handle 40 million passengers a year.

DOHA: US engineering giant Bechtel has signed a contract to build the first phase of a $5 billion dollar airport for the Qatari capital, Doha, the head of the Gulf emirate's civil aviation authority announced. The first of three stages in the construction of the New Doha International Airport would begin this year and completed by late 2008 at a cost of $2.5 billion, Abdul Aziz Al Nuaimi told a press conference. "The airport will be one of the biggest in the world with an (annual) capacity of 50 million pasengers in Qatar" when it is finished around 2015, he said.

TEHRAN: Iran’s Minister of Road and Transportation Ahmad Khorram has said that the Imam Khomeini International Airport will handle all international flights once it becomes operational in February. He added that Mehrabad International Airport will continue to serve passengers on domestic routes as well as those going on pilgrimage to Syria and Saudi Arabia. The minister further told reporters that Mehrabad Airport will provide better facilities for the pilgrims.

MANAMA: Bahrain and Lebanon have agreed to provide all rights for the operation of any number of flights between the two countries. The agreement was reached at a meeting between the delegations of the Civil Aviation Affairs and the Lebanese General Directorate of Civil Aviation. The meeting also agreed to allow the operation of any number of cargo and tourism flights to boost the tourism sector in the two countries.

MANAMA: THE Civil Aviation Affairs has launched its bilingual website, www.bahrainairport.com, which provides information on facilities and incentives offered to companies wishing to use Bahrain International Airport. The site, which had been tested for over a year, has already been visited more than 100,000 times before its official inauguration. "The Civil Aviation and Bahrain International Airport website has been developed following instructions from Transportation Minister Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa," Civil Aviation Affairs Under-Secretary Abdulrahman Al Gaoud said

MANAMA: Lebanon has changed its entry procedure for visitors of certain nationalities - meaning they can no longer acquire a visa at the airport or border. Instead they will have to apply for a visa through the Lebanese Embassy in Bahrain before they travel. Since the change, there have been a number of cases of people being turned away from Bahrain Airport because they did not apply for a visa in advance, according to diplomatic sources. Countries whose citizens now need to apply for a visa through the embassy are: the UK, Jordan, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, India, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. 

DOHA: Qatar has announced it will soon invite tenders for more than $2.5 billion in contracts to start building a new Doha airport which it envisions as a major travel hub. "Construction companies will soon be able to bid for more than 2.5 billion worth of tenders for the first phase of Qatar's new signature airport," the chief executive of Qatar's Airways, Akbar Al Baker, told a press conference on the opening day of the Dubai air show. He said phase one with a capacity of 12 million passengers a year would be completed in 2008.

MUSCUT: The National Bank of Oman (NBO) has opened its new airport booth, near Shell petrol station, opposite Seeb International Airport for the convenience of its customers. The booth is easily accessible from all directions. The chief guest Sayyid Mohammad Bin Ahmed Bin Nasr Al Busaidi, deputy wali of Seeb, inaugurated the new booth, at a function held recently. “We aspire to be a customer centred, progressive bank and will continue our efforts to make banking easy and convenient for our valued customers,” said the wali. 

MANAMA: Bahrain Duty Free has completed a BD150,000 refurbishment and expansion of its arrivals shop at the airport. The new shop, situated on the arrivals concourse immediately after the immigration counters, measures 170 square metres. This is double the area of the previous shop, said managing director Abdulla Buhindi. "We hope it will help us to double the sales in the arrival area," he said. "The new facility will allow us to increase the range of products on display,” he noted.

TEHRAN: Airways New Zealand has won a consulting project to assist with the expansion of the airport on Qeshm Island. Airways International - Airways New Zealand's international arm, together with Malaysian based Leading Edge Aviation Planning Professional, have prepared an Airport Master Plan for the airport for the Qeshm Investment Development Organisation, proposing a range of opportunities for commercial development for the airport and areas for improvement to ensure that it met international civil aviation requirements.

DOHA: Qatar has unveiled plans to invest two billion dollars in the first phase of a new airport in Doha. The emirate on the eastern coast of the Arabian Gulf will start construction of the new state-of-the-art Doha International Airport next year. Chief Executive Officer of Doha International Airport and Qatar Airways Akbar Al Baker unveiled the new airport's master plan at the recent World Travel Market in London, England. The new facility will have two parallel runways and an estimated capacity to handle and process nearly 12 million passengers annually. The terminal would have 24 contact gates in the first phase and would be able to accommodate up to six A380-800 Super Jumbos when fully developed.

JEDDAH: There are no plans for an airport in Makkah, said Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defence and aviation, denying press reports. “There is no truth in the report,” Prince Sultan told reporters in Makkah after chairing a meeting of Sultan Charitable Foundation. He said the expansion work on King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah, the main gateway for Haj and Umrah pilgrims, will start soon, while the expansion of Taif airport was progressing as planned. The KAIA expansion project, which includes construction of two new terminals and establishment of 25 air bridges, is designed to accommodate 21 million passengers.

RIYADH: Three contracts valued at SR 638 million ($170 million) with five Saudi companies for the operation and maintenance of local and regional airports were signed by Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defence and aviation, Arab News has reported. There are 27 airports in Saudi Arabia, including three international airports in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia will privatise its international and local airports but keep security duties at the facilities in state hands, civil aviation chief Abdullah Rahimi has said in remarks published this week. “The civil aviation authority will seek to achieve broad private sector participation in running local and international airports by privatising them, except for security operations,” he told the daily Al Madinah. Rahimi said his authority was already privatising some airport services, but he did not give a timeframe for completion of the process.

TEHRAN: Iran has again been forced to delay the opening of a new airport designed to better serve its sprawling capital and compete as a regional transport hub, Transport Minister Ahmad Khoram has said. Quoted by state media, Khoram said the first phase of the airport — which is named after revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — is expected to become operational by March 2004. Officials had hoped the airport, situated on a new site some 35 kilometres south of Tehran, would be inaugurated as part of a series of 25th anniversary celebrations marking the 1979 Islamic revolution in February. Tehran’s present airport, Mehrabad, is situated close to the city centre and is used for both civilian and military flights. According to official figures, it handled over nine million passengers last year.  

TEHRAN: Iran has again been forced to delay the opening of a new airport designed to better serve its sprawling capital and compete as a regional transport hub, Transport Minister Ahmad Khoram has said. Quoted by state media, Khoram said the first phase of the airport — which is named after revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — is expected to become operational by March 2004. Officials had hoped the airport, situated on a new site some 35 kilometres south of Tehran, would be inaugurated as part of a series of 25th anniversary celebrations marking the 1979 Islamic revolution in February. Tehran’s present airport, Mehrabad, is situated close to the city centre and is used for both civilian and military flights. According to official figures, it handled over nine million passengers last year.  

CAIRO: The Aviation Information Technology at the Cairo International Airport Company and the Egyptian Airports Company (EAC) have selected SITA to integrate applications across its IT infrastructure and manage its systems as well as those of six other airports in Egypt. The contract marks the start of the second phase of a five-year, $35 million Airport Systems Integration project to streamline the passenger journey and support Egypt’s growing tourism industry. Phase I of the project began in December 2001, by linking the airports of six major tourist destinations to one main Control Center at the Ministry of Civil Aviation in Cairo. The six airports covered by Phase I were Sharm Al Sheikh, Hurgada, Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel and Alexandria, which jointly handle some 12 million passengers per year.