A gigantic airport currently being constructed will become the biggest in the world and is thought to have a price tag of more than £20billion. Work on the King Salman International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is underway as the country looks to shatter records and offer staggering passenger capacity for fliers travelling to and from the kingdom.
Designed by British architectural firm Foster + Partners, the flight hub is taking shape over 22 square miles and is set to integrate the existing terminals that have been in operation since 1983, whilst adding a vast array of luxurious elements. These include 4.3. miles of retail and office space, six passenger and six runways, meaning it will have four more than Heathrow, the UK’s biggest airport.
Fellow UK firm Mace is the delivery partner on the project.
The airport has a projected capacity of 120 million passengers by the end of the decade, with plans to up that to a 185million by 2050, according to the World Tourism Forum.
Its estimated to cost $30billion (around £21.9m) and is part of Saudi Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud’s £1trillion Vision 2030 project.
Vision 2030 an programme launched by the government to diversify its economy away from a reliance on oil revenues, with the kingdom plowing vast amounts into an array of eye-catching developments.
These include the new £40 billion New Murabba city which will also be in Riyadh, as well as the “Neom” megacity in the country’s Tabuk province.
King Fahd International Airport, which is also known as Dammam Airport and is also in Saudi Arabia, is currently the largest in the world, and serves more than 10million passengers a year – numbers that will be eclipsed by the new development.
It’s just one of a number of airport projects underway internationally.
It comes amid a surge in air travel, which has rebounded following a major dip during the Covid pandemic. In the first quarter of 2025, 60 million passengers travelled through UK airports, according to UK Civil Aviation Authority data, a 2% uptick on the same period in 2024.
Meanwhile, according to air travel industry association the International Air Transport Association (IATA), international full-year traffic increased 13.6% last year compared to 2023, while capacity leapt by 12.8%.
The increase in demand, as well as rapid population growth in emerging economies, has seen many countries race to expand existing airports and build new ones.