JEDDAH — The domestic and international commercial air traffic has increased by about 9.7 percent with the Kingdom's airports transporting more than 74 million passengers in 2014, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said in a statistical report. The report, published by Al-Madina newspaper on Monday, said there were 62.7 million passengers to international airports and 12 million domestic passengers. The report said the flights to and from the Kingdom's airports increased by about 4.2 percent to reach 589,216 in 2014 compared to 565,631 fights in 2013. It added that, in the year under review, there were 475,973 international flights and 113,243 domestic ones. King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) in Jeddah, with about 28 million passengers, tops all the Kingdom's airports in the number of arriving and departing passengers during 2014 registering an increase of 5.5 percent over their number in 2013. King Khaled International Airport (KKIA) in Riyadh came second with 20.1 million passengers who were more by 8.2 percent over their number in the previous year. King Fahd International Airport in Dammam occupied third place with 8.2 million passengers while Prince Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madinah came fourth with 6.3 million passengers. KAIA also came first in the number of flights. It witnessed 182,458 flights consisting of 104,038 international, 63,094 domestic and 15,326 special flights. There were 163,383 flights to and from KKIA consisting of 67,270 international, 80,516 domestic and 15,597 special flights. KFIA in Dammam had 36,847 international, 30,119 domestic and 12,318 special flights while the Madinah airport had 26,895 international, 22,469 domestic and 44,725 special flights. The report said air cargo of goods and courier parcels dropped in 2014 to 1,019,805 ton from 1,056,068 ton in 2013.
