On location: ‘Towards the supreme, fulfilling our dreams’ in Riyadh

We’re two days into the Year of the Wood Snake (the first, incidentally, since 1965) and appropriately enough I’m back in China, at home in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, after a wonderful three-week trip that took in Sri Lanka, Dubai and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) was crammed with people on my return from Riyadh, consistent with Airport Authority Hong Kong Acting Chief Executive Officer Vivian Cheung’s recent upbeat take on Christmas traffic and her view that the Chinese New Year holidays would see a new peak as airlines added multiple flights to meet high demand. How good it is to see this outstanding airport back in full swing.

During the year, HKIA served (I wish, like many airports, they would not say ‘handled’ in their press releases) 53.1 million passengers, just 74.3% of pre-pandemic 2019 levels but the trend is all in the right direction. For December 2024, passenger volume increased +18.3% year-on-year to 5.1 million, an encouraging 89.5% of the December 2019 total.

There’s certainly no shortage of passenger traffic at King Khalid International Airport (KKIA), gateway to the Saudi Arabia capital Riyadh. On my final day in the Kingdom last week I had the welcome opportunity to tour the revamped terminals 3 and 4 and gaining a first experience of the recently reopened and new-look T1 and T1-T2 link (T2 is under development and will open in around a year) both on a guided tour and as a passenger that night.

My tour was led by Riyadh Airports (RAC) Chief Commercial Officer Abdulaziz Al-Asaker, as expert and as passionate a guide as you could wish for. Abdulaziz is rightly proud of the commercial transformation that RAC has brought to KKIA. Over a highly enjoyable 40-minute chat in his office, he told me time and again of his determination to take the consumer level at KKIA to new heights.

“We crowned 2024 with the launch of Terminal 1,” he says. “Terminal 1 really showed our ambitions. With T3 and T4 we worked according to the limitations we have but when it comes to T1 we built the commercial areas from scratch.

“What made it more beautiful and gave us such an excellent presence for the commercial area is that we have very strong partners. We have Avolta, SSP and Lagardère Travel Retail – very big players participating in these tenders – which allowed us to select high-level brands to elevate the terminal.

“So we have very strong partners. And this year we will have casual dining and fine dining – for the first time in a Saudi Airport. We had a complete refurbishment of duty free and we launched 30 retail and F&B outlets across terminals 5, 4, 3 and 1.”

Already that investment is paying off with commercial revenues having outpaced strong passenger growth in 2024. But the job is far from over, Abdulaziz insists. Perhaps it will never be.

“We’ll keep pushing and I don’t think we will reach the limit because there is no limit,” he says. “We’ll keep pushing further and further and enhance efficiency until we know we are providing an amazing offer to our passengers while also getting the right return for us.”

Speaking of the Kingdom’s far-reaching Vision 2030 blueprint for the future, Abdulaziz says: “I was proud when it was announced and I’m proud to see it materialising. And what makes me even more proud right now is that I am working in one of the most strategic areas, because the vision depends on airports to be the best industry to accept tourists and to help diversify the economy.

“If you ask me or any of the 30 million people living in Saudi Arabia, they will tell you they are very proud of what’s happening here with the change that we see materialising.”

The interview over (look out for its publication on our main website in coming weeks) it’s time to see how that materialising has reshaped KKIA. Below are some of my pictorial highlights, taken that afternoon and later before my flight. They capture in static form, prime examples of the incredibly rapid transformation across the Kingdom’s travel retail sector.

What will endure longer in my memory, however, from my latest journey is of the pride, passion and emboldenment of the people of Saudi Arabia, the extraordinary warmth of their hospitality, and of the vision and vibrancy that underpins a startling societal and business transformation.

Don’t take your eyes off the country. For by the time you look up it will have changed again. ✈

AND FINALLY… TERMINAL 1

 

Earlier on The Moodie Blog from Saudi Arabia (Click on the images to read)