Irish firm awarded Saudi's first privately run air terminal

A subsidiary of state-owned Irish airport operator daa has won the bid to operate Saudi Arabia's first privately run terminal, official media in the kingdom and the company said today.
Colm Moran, CEO of daa International, signed the deal to manage and operate Riyadh's Terminal 5 with Sulaiman al-Hamdan, president of regulator the General Authority of Civil Aviation, the Saudi Press Agency said.
The contract came "in light of the authority's policy aimed at privatisation of airports and their operations to raise the level of services and tasks according to competitive criteria," it said.
Daa International, whose parent daa runs Dublin and Cork airports, beat five other international airport operators for the multi-million-dollar contract at King Khaled International Airport serving the Saudi capital, the company said in a statement.

In an initial step towards privatisation, the kingdom last July opened the upgraded Prince Mohammad bin Abdul Aziz International Airport in the holy city of Medina.
It was built by TIBAH Airports Development Co, a consortium of Turkey's TAV Airports along with local firms Al-Rajhi and Saudi Oger. The joint venture runs the airport.