After more than 10 years since the launch of the project, the new terminal of Muscat International Airport was opened today. At 3 pm the operations were transferred from the old terminal, built in the 80’s to the new, which was sized for an initial capacity of 24 million passengers that following the future already planned extensions will soon be increased to 48 million passengers / year.

The new terminal follows the opening of the new runway 08L-26R in  December 2014 , which is 4,000 m long, suitable for the 4F ICAO Category and the new control tower with its 97 m, the highest construction in Oman. The newly opened terminal was built on an area of ​​580,000 square meters, while about 30,000 square meters are occupied by other supporting buildings, it is equipped with 96 check-in counters, 29 boarding bridges, 30 remote parking stands, a baggage handling system (BHS) capable of sorting 5,500 bags per hour and a 4-star hotel with 90 rooms for transit passengers.

It is indeed one of the largest airport projects in the world, and certainly the largest infrastructure project ever made in Oman.

Like all these great projects, there have been many technical, economic and organizational difficulties to be overcome in order to complete this impressive work, with a delay of four years compared to initial forecasts. Among the various challenges, the one due to the position of the airport itself that rises along the coast and has very low elevations, this required that a complex system of marine water management was studied; the cyclone Gonu, which in 2007 hit the just started construction site  causing enormous damage; the complexity of the plants, which at these latitudes are subject to temperatures that in the hot season can reach 56 degrees.

The new Muscat airport is a new player on the already very competitive market of the Gulf countries, where mega airports such as that of Dubai (95 million passengers / year), Doha Hamad (37 million) and Abu Dhabi (25 million) whose new terminal will also be inaugurated soon co-exist . These projects, which at first sight may seem over-sized, are actually just enough to accommodate the traffic that in this region grows with double-digit percentages: Muscat has grown by 19% per year in recent years. This is due to an economy which, despite the decline in oil prices recorded in the last two years, remains however very solid, and to the development of tourism that is making Oman an increasingly popular destination for the variety of places and for the security of the country in which, as matter of fact, there is no crime.

Many companies have contributed to the project, including: Adpi (Project Management), Hill International (Supervision), Thales (navigation aids and airport systems), Indra (Air Traffic Management) as well as companies such as CCC that in collaboration with TAV has bult the new runway, Bechtel which together with the Enka has built the new terminal or Carillion which has built the new control tower. Overall, over 120 companies contributed to the project and it is estimated that the number of technicians and workers employed during the period of maximum activity has exceeded 6,000 units per day.

The next phase of development of the project involves the construction of the second parallel runway 08R-26L that will replace the old runway and will be equipped with the latest generation systems, such as LED lights, the new ALCMS system and a good eight rapid exit taxiways to allow to exploit the maximum capacity of the runway; this project will be entirely “Made in Italy”.