Saudi Gazette report

JEDDAH — Riyadh’s King Khalid International airport (KKIA) became the second airport in the Middle East to acquire the internationally-renowned Airport Health Accreditation (AHA) certificate, Saudi Press Agency reported on Wednesday.

The certificate is given by the Airports Council International (ACI) for following new health measures and procedures introduced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in accordance with the ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Task Force recommendations.

Areas of assessment for accreditation include cleaning and disinfection, physical distancing (where feasible and practical), staff protection, physical layout, passenger communications, and passenger facilities.

In a statement on Wednesday carried by Saudi Press Agency, Mohammed Bin Abdullah Al-Maghlouth, executive manager of Riyadh Airports Company, said that the KKIA has won the accreditation in recognition of the strict precautionary and preventive measured applied on passengers, airport personnel, and fixed facilities of the airport since the spread of coronavirus epidemic to guarantee the safety of passengers and those who use the airport.

He added that the airport administration was keen to provide strict but comfortable health services to users of domestic and international flights alike according to instructions of the Civil Aviation Authority as well as the Ministry of Health in cooperation with all its stakeholders inside and outside Saudi Arabia upon a high-level operative mechanism and use of state-of-the-art devices.

The ACI accommodates 575 members administering more than 1,633 airports in 179 countries around the world.