HAIL: Prince Saud Bin Abdul Muhsin, Emir of Hail, has said that the region's airport will welcome its first flights from abroad “within two weeks”. According to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Arabic daily, the first international flights from Hail Airport are destined for Cairo, Egypt, a journey scheduled to take one hour. Hail Airport is within one hour's flight of 11 Arab capital cities and four hours from central Europe. The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) announced recently that it had begun work on designs for a new airport in Hail to handle 1.5 million passengers per year. The current regional airport was built in 1972 and has recently undergone expansion work on its departure and arrival terminals. An increase in commerce and trade activity in the region of Hail has led to increased demand for internal flights to the region, but with the opening of other regional airports, such as in Qassim, the number of flights from Hail to the main cities such as Riyadh and Jeddah have fallen over the last two years. The GACA has converted a number of regional airports in the Kingdom into international facilities. Airports in Yanbu, Qassim and most recently Taif, are now scheduled to be followed by Hail and Tabuk.
