The number of travelers through Saudi Arabia's airports grew 9.5 percent to 81.9 million in 2015 compared to the previous year, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), the Kingdom's air transport regulator, announced recently. Those travelers boarded 646,693 flights in 2015, an increase of 9.8 percent over 2014 (74.8 million travelers on 589,216 flights,) GACA added. In its statistics report, the agency said that 30.1 million travelers went through Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport throughout last year, boarding and disembarking from 212,799 flights, an increase of 7.3 percent for travelers and 16.6 percent for flights from 2014. At King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, 22.5 million people used 172,754 flights in 2015, an increase of 12.1 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively, compared to 2014's figures. Dammam's King Fahd International Airport saw an increase of 14.1 percent to 9.4 million travelers, with a seven-percent rise in flights to 84,803 year-on-year. Madinah's Prince Mohamed Bin Abdulaziz International Airport bucked the trend with a 0.5-percent decrease in travelers, to 48,296, who had gone through five percent fewer flights in 2014 than those in 2014. The Kingdom's 23 regional and domestic airports saw off approximately 13.5 million travelers during the year, with 128,041 flights having been boarded. GACA continues to work hard to develop and enhance the vast country's airport network to keep up with its brisk economic growth, reflected in the rapidly growing demand for air travel across the Kingdom.
