After several years of sagging performance, Saudi Arabia’s aviation market reported its strongest growth in passenger traffic in more than a decade in 2011, even against the background of the Middle East’s regional social unrest, the CAPA Centre for Aviation said.

Despite the Arab Spring uprisings, Saudi Arabian passenger traffic boomed in 2011, up 13.6 percent year-on-year in 2011, to just over 54 million passengers, as the national economy expanded 6.8 percent (real GDP estimate) on expanding oil output and renewed government and private sector investment. Large infrastructure investments are fuelling high movements of migrant workers from around the Gulf as well as India, Southeast Asia and China.

The increase in passenger traffic continues a trend of improving growth in the Saudi market seen over the past few years. Since the beginning of the liberalization of the Saudi market in 2007, passenger traffic has grown at an average of 7.7 percent per annum, almost double the average growth of the previous five years.

The development is a promising one for the Saudi Arabian aviation market.
The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) is due to award new airline operating licenses later this year to open up the local aviation market.

Moreover, CAPA said the impending liberalization in both the Saudi domestic and international passenger markets is set to give the Saudi aviation industry the greatest competitive shake-up.

International traffic dominated the growth in the Saudi market in 2011, with passenger numbers up 18.2 percent year-on-year to 29.3 million. Saudi Arabia is the economic powerhouse of the Middle East and has a fast growing population, which makes the Kingdom an increasingly important market for local airlines, as well as for carriers from further afield.

Regional carriers such as Gulf Air, Qatar Airways, Bahrain Air and Etihad Airways all devoted more capacity and attention to the Saudi Arabian market in 2011. Air Arabia CEO Adel Ali said in Jun-2012 that the carrier recognixes the potential in the Saudi Arabian market and local authorities have "gone a long way" in developing the country’s aviation market.

The Bahrain-based Gulf Air and Bahrain Air in particular have shifted increasing amounts of capacity into the market. In late 2011, Gulf Air CEO Samar Majali described Saudi Arabia as the carrier’s most important market. Bahrain Air selected Dammam as its second hub in late 2011 and launched services from the city to Beirut and Khartoum in Jun-2012.

The Kingdom has been busily upgrading and refurbishing its airports over the past few years, as part of a $ 50 billion infrastructure investment program in the aviation and transport sector. Passenger numbers at the Kingdom’s domestic airports jumped a record 21 percent in 2011, while flight numbers increased 13.1 percent. Traffic at the 21 domestic airports jumped 161 percent in 2011, mostly at Taif, Al-Gassim, Tabuk, Yanbu and Abha.

Foreign carriers handled approximately 62 percent of passenger traffic to/from Saudi Arabia in 2011, up from 58 percent in 2010 and 55 percent in 2009. Increasingly, Gulf regional carriers, both full service and LCCs, are offering a high frequency of connections into Saudi airports.