FUJAIRAH AIRPORT PREPARES FOR DRAMATIC TAKE-OFF
▶ Transformation starts with ability to handle larger planes and boost tourist business
Major expansion plans for Fujairah airport will include a runway upgrade to cope with planes as large as the Airbus A380, as the emirate sets its sights on attracting more visitors to the east coast.
The tendering process is complete, construction firms are to be announced soon and all works are scheduled to be completed by 2020, officials said.
The plans include a new control tower in the shape of a falcon and a parallel taxiway where aircraft can queue.
The work is being funded by the Federal Government in collaboration with Abu Dhabi Airports company and is part of plans by Sheikh Hamad Al Sharqi, the Ruler, to develop the strategically important emirate.
Fujairah is the only emirate with a coast facing the Indian Ocean. Its main port is being developed and an oil pipeline from Abu Dhabi is in operation.
“It is an exciting time to be at Fujairah International Airport,” Charles Hajdu, acting general manager of the airport, told The National during a tour of the airport.
“The expansion will begin a new era. [It will bring] improved efficiencies of operations as well as creating potential for new opportunities in business development.”
Most planes at Fujairah take off and land towards the coast. The plan will reposition the runway away from the mountains, meaning planes can more easily approach and take off from both directions. The 3,750-metre runway will also be widened from 46m to 60m to accommodate the world’s largest passenger plane – the A380 – as a scheduled service. Currently A380s can land at Fujairah only if they need to be diverted from elsewhere.
The new control tower will be taller than the one it replaces and has a falcon design. The parallel taxiway will allow aircraft to quickly enter and exit the runway. It can also function as an emergency runway as it is envisaged that the original runway will need to be resurfaced.
In 1992, Fujairah served 1,000 passengers a day.
Numbers declined after that and, according to a 2012 article in The National, Fujairah was an airport in waiting.
Six years on, the runways, check-in desks and e-gates are still quiet when compared with the hubs at Abu Dhabi and Dubai. A terminal building that can accommodate two million passengers a year deals with an average of 35,000. But Mr Hajdu said that figure is rising. One of the factors hampering growth is the lack of a scheduled passenger service or base airline, but about 50 charter tourist flights arrive every year.
On Tuesday, an Enter Air tourist charter from Poland landed.
“This is an increasing trend. We are aiming to quadruple these numbers over the next five years,” Mr Hajdu said.
It is true that the Al Aqah area is expanding. An Intercontinental hotel is the latest to open on the resort strip. According to the official Fujairah statistical yearbook, there were 764,734 hotel guests in 2016, up from 707,436 in 2014.
“We support the efforts of the Fujairah Tourism and Antiquities Authority, both with inbound agencies on fact-finding missions and with our presence at international exhibitions such as World Travel Market,” Mr Hajdu said.
Fujairah airport, meanwhile, is used for flight instruction, a place for diverted aircraft to land because it is not affected much by fog and for cargo aircraft maintenance. But the majority of flights at Fujairah are cargo. There are up to 10 commercial flight movements a day and the largest plane to have landed at Fujairah was the Antonov 124 – a freighter which is still the biggest military transport aircraft in the world.
A lot of the cargo goes by road from Jebel Ali and is flown out to Africa on aircraft such as Russian Ilyushins that are suitable for landing at more remote airfields not serviced by the likes of Emirates. Most of the cargo is for export but an increasing trend is the import of live animals during Ramadan.
Other developments at Fujairah include the removal of some of the Soviet era-planes abandoned over the past few years, making space for hangars and parking facilities.
Hawker Pacific has created a facility there for helicopter maintenance.
The news was welcomed by aviation experts. Alan Peaford, editor of Arabian Aerospace, said Fujairah has great potential.
“Despite the number of major airports established in the UAE, there is still a need for development of secondary or alternate airports,” he said. “These need to have the same high standard infrastructure and safety standards as the majors. This work … makes that happen.”
Capacity building is a big step towards establishing scheduled passenger flights, opening up the markets of the emirate