Turner & Townsend to design asset management system for King Abdulaziz Airport

Jeddah Airports Company (Jedco) has appointed global programme management company Turner & Townsend to design and implement an enterprise‑wide asset management system at King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, aligned to the international standard for asset management, ISO 55001.

KAIA is one of the kingdom’s most strategically significant aviation gateways, the primary hub for national carrier Saudia and a principal gateway for millions of pilgrims travelling to Makkah and Madinah each year. 

How the airport’s terminals, airfield infrastructure, baggage handling systems and building services are invested in, operated, maintained and renewed over their whole life directly shapes operational reliability, safety and the passenger journey.

The programme is already delivering. Jedco’s first corporate Asset Management Policy has been formally approved, a governance structure for asset management decision‑making has been established at executive level, and development of the Strategic Asset Management Plan and the first Asset Management Plans for critical airport systems is under way.

An asset management system gives an organisation one consistent basis for making those decisions. Instead of assets being managed function by function, Jedco is putting in place shared asset management objectives, clear accountability across all levels of the organisation, governed and trusted asset information, and a common method for balancing cost, risk and performance across the full asset lifecycle. 

ISO 55001 provides the international benchmark against which the system is being built and will be independently assessed. 

Since the programme began, Jedco and Turner & Townsend have completed a comprehensive ISO 55001 gap assessment covering every clause of the standard and converted the findings into a prioritised improvement roadmap. 

Hossam Aljahdali, FM Asset Management Senior Manager at Jeddah Airports Company, said: "The approval of Jedco's first Asset Management Policy represents a significant commitment by our leadership to manage the airport's assets throughout their entire lifecycle."

"It establishes a consistent approach to balancing performance, risk, cost, and sustainability while ensuring our infrastructure continues to support safe, reliable, and efficient airport operations," he stated.

The resulting Asset Management Policy, issued in both Arabic and English, commits the organisation to eleven guiding principles spanning safety and regulatory compliance, leadership accountability, whole‑life value, information governance, sustainability and resilience, and continual improvement. 

The programme is delivered by AMCL, Turner & Townsend’s global asset management advisory business, working as an integrated team with Jedco’s Facilities Management function and stakeholders across operations, engineering, finance, safety, governance and commercial.

Alberto Carrera, Asset Management Director Lead for AMCL, Turner & Townsend, said: "The KAIA is central to the Kingdom’s aviation ambitions, connecting people, pilgrims and industries across the region. What Jedco has taken on is more demanding than an efficiency exercise - it is changing how decisions about assets are made across the whole organisation, and holding those decisions to an international standard."

"The progress made so far reflects real commitment from Jedco’s leadership. Our role is to help build the system, the capability and the evidence base behind that commitment, so the benefits - better‑informed investment, more dependable performance and greater long‑term resilience - continue to be realised by its own teams long after our involvement ends," he added.-TradeArabia News Service