Kuwait airport passenger numbers flying higher

Kuwait International Airport

• Flights up 15% year on year
• New terminal to cater to 25m travellers annually
• Active destinations include Dubai, Istanbul and Cairo

Passenger traffic through Kuwait International Airport is forecast to grow by 7 percent this year, fuelled by increased activity across the summer months.

Total passenger numbers to and from the airport is expected to reach 15.5 million, according to the Gulf state’s Directorate General of Aviation, up from 14.46 million passengers reported in 2022.

Abdullah Al Rajhi, director of air transports at the Directorate General of Aviation, revealed that the current summer season is expected to hit 5.75 million passengers, an increase of 13 percent over the same period last year.

He added that 45,000 flights are to be operated during this time, which is up 15 percent year on year.

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The most active destinations at the airport during the summer have been Dubai, Istanbul, Cairo, Doha and Abu Dhabi.

Kuwait Airways operated the most flights, followed by Jazeera Airways, IndiGo, Turkish Airlines and FlyDubai.

The government is completing a multi-billion-dollar refurbishment and expansion programme at the airport.

T2, a new passenger terminal at Kuwait International Airport, will cater to 25 million passengers annually. It will include 51 boarding gates and aircraft parking lots and will be able to accommodate and load 21 Airbus and A380 aircraft simultaneously.

The government signed a KD1.3 billion ($4.2 billion) contract in May 2016 with Turkey’s Limak Group to build the terminal.

The airport’s Terminal 4, which opened in 2018, is used exclusively by Kuwait Airways, while Jazeera Airways owns and operates Terminal 5. Terminal 3 is reserved for private aircraft.