King Abdulaziz
International Airport
King Abdulaziz International Airport is an airport 19 km north of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The airport is named after King Abdulaziz Al Saud and is the busiest airports in the country, with more than 30 million passengers using the airport annually. The airport has a terminal specially built for Hajj pilgrims travelling to the nearby Mecca. This terminal was designed to process up to 80,000 passengers at the same time.
The airport began construction in 1974 and the official opening followed in April 1981. The design of the building shell has a strong conceptual form, with sweeping, curved lines and a cross-over structure resembling the intersecting swords of the national emblem of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 2006 a three-stage development started; this was designed to increase the airports yearly capacity from 13 million to 80 million passengers.