Catchment area

Facts, stats and culture

Kingdom Saudi Arabia is a country in the Middle East with border countries Irak, Jordan, Qatar, Oman, Jemen, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. The capital city is Riyadh with approximatly 5,1 million inhabitants. The second biggest city is Jeddah with 3,4 million inhabitants. Folliwing cities are Makkah and Madinah with around 1 million inhabitants. Saudi Arabia is mainly dessert and has a lot of petroleum. The Islamic religion has its origins in Saudi Arabia. That is why the legislation of Saudi Arabia is based on the Koran and Sharia. This is also called theocracy.

The culture of Saudi Arabia is also based on the Islam and so alcoholic beverages and pork products are forbidden in the country. Women may not ride a bicycle, ride a car or even wear make-up. Old standards of Islamic religion is dominating. A muslim women wears mostly an abayah that is restricted by the Saudi Arabian law.

A very popular hobby is smoking shisha. In Jeddah the hookahs, flavored tobacco and hot coals are delivered at home. This is the only thing that is not forbidden, because it does not fit in drugs or Alcohol laws.

Railway current network

Because of the immense popularity of the holy cities Makkah and Madinah, it is necessary to implement a great and fast connection towards these cities. This can be done by applying a new really fast and environmental friendly railway that is going across the Holy Cities but also across King Abdullah economic city, which is interesting for business passengers of Jeddah Airport. By implementing a new and fast railway the popularity of this modality will increase and more people will leave their car at home. This means no more congestions or less parking space around the airport highways. This is the current rail network of Saudi Arabia, the red lines don’t exist yet

Railway future network

For the future network it is necessary for Jeddah Airport to have a good connection with the Holy Cities Makkah and Madinah, King Abdullah Aziz Economic city and with Riyadh Airport. For the connection with the Holy Cities the pilgrims are important customers, for the Economic city the business passangers and for the connection with Riyadh Airport. This results in new fast rail projects in Saudi Arabia.

Current flight network

The flight network of Saudi Arabia in general and especially of Riyadh and Jeddah Airport is increasing quite fast. The low-cost routes are becoming more popular to Asia and especially to Africa. The current flight network can be seen here, where the regions Africa and Asia will become more popular destinations in the future:

Future flight network

‘’Connectivity reflects the range, frequency or service, the economic importance of destinations and the number of onward connections available through each country’s aviation network.’’

There are currently 157 different routes to different destinations from Saudi Arabia. 37 of those routes are connecting the big cities with more than 10 million inhabitants. Towards Cairo is the most popular route from Jeddah Airport with 15 flights a day and London is also interesting for business passenger which is handling 3 flights a day.

The chart below shows the total value of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) built up in individual countries in relation to their GDP against an index of connectivity, that measures the availability of flights, weighted by the importance of each of the destinations served. The oxford studies defined that at least 10% of more connectivity can be related with the growth of 1 % of the GDP of Saudi Arabia in general and the most popular routes will become in Asia and Africa. Saudi Arabia has not a lot of different type routes and with the new improved Jeddah Airport this amount will be increased a lot.

A number of recent studies have attempted to quantify the long-term impact on a country’s GDP that results from an improvement in connectivity. Measuring connectivity is not straightforward. The graph below shows the measure of Saudi Arabian connectivity compared with other economies.

An informative movie about the current developing Haramain railway between Jeddah, Madinah and Mekka