Iraq plans to construct four new provincial airports over the next decade, Transport Minister Ahmed Murtada recently stated. Terminals with the capacity to handle each two million passengers annually would be built in Niniveh, about 400 kilometers north of Baghdad, and Najaf, some 160 kilometers south of the capital, Al-Jumhuriya reported.
Kirkuk province, bordering Turkey, would see a 400,000-passenger airport built, as would Missan province, 360 kilometers south of Baghdad. Murtada added that a new central air control tower would be built in Baghdad. The ministry has drawn up a 10-year plan under which domestic passenger numbers would rise from 116,000 a year today to 450,000 in the year 2012.
Iraq resumed domestic flights in November 2000 and has major airports at Basra in the south and in Niniveh, as well as the capital. Baghdad airport reopened two years ago after a decade of closure due to the United Nations sanctions imposed over the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
