- Main construction work will be completed by 2018
- Current terminal will be turned to a domestic terminal
- Terminal floor area will be expanded to 78000 sq meters
Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) has revealed that the airport development project was assigned to Saudi Arabia's Bin Laden Group for US$ 300 million.
Speaking to Avas, MACL Managing Director Adil Moosa said many preliminaries had to be completed prior to the start of the development project, noting the preliminaries was nearly completed.
"Preliminaries are underway. The buildings have been relocated. If they [Bin Laden Group] wants to begin work today, they can create temporary site and offices in the recently reclaimed 73000 sq meter site," Adil said.
Thirteen buildings of the airport had been relocated to another site for the construction of the new passenger terminal. The project was carried out by MTCC.
New international terminal
- 78000 square meter area
- 40 departure gates
- 38 immigration counters
- 12 shaded jetties
- six aero bridges, can be converted to four bridges
- state of the art baggage screening and baggage service belts
- high expolsive detection system
- fuel hydrant systems
MD Adil said the company has been making arrangements since the project had been awarded.
"We estimate when the two projects [runway and terminal] starts, around 4000 employees will be working at the peak periods. It will begin in the next two or three months," Adil said.
Adil anticipated the project would be completed in the next three years.
"As you maybe aware of the terminal is not just a building. There's equipment and machinery. With the project, comes the work of a subcontractor or a third party. For example, we have to integrate the aero bridges, baggage handling systems, software," Adil said.
He estimated that the main work of the terminal will be completed by 2018.
"The entire terminal may not be completed by 2018. But we hope to finish most of the work by then. The appointment was awarded later than we anticipated. We have been working on the project for a while now," Adil said.
He said that once the new international terminal was completed, the current terminal will be designated as a domestic airport.
"When we bring in the improvements, the domestic airport will be quite small. Domestic caters to the local and around 50 percent of international flights. The area is congested. So we plan to make the current international terminal to a domestic one; the two terminals will be connected by floor," Adil said.
The entire development project is expected to cost around US$ 800 million.
