Rendering of the exterior area of the soon-to-be-built King David the Builder International Airport in Kutaisi, Georgia. Image courtesy of UNStudio.
Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili – who symbolically participated in the demolition of the old airport building by tearing down one of the walls with the help of heavy machinery – anticipates that the new airport will act both as a stimulator for new businesses in the country and as a hub between the European and Asian markets.
The new King David the Builder International Airport and observation tower will be among the largest scale and “most distinguished” projects going on in Georgia today, said the president.
The new airport’s name is in honor of Georgia’s King David IV who ruled between the 11th and 12th century. The country reached its political and economic peak during his reign, only to later fall into seemingly unending occupations, civil unrest, and economic crisis.
After the Rose Revolution in 2003, the new government introduced democratic and economic reforms, and the country is now trying to make strides towards reaching its former glories.
The new King David airport will be located in Kutaisi, which is the second largest city in Georgia and where the new parliament building is now being built. Kutaisi is just 221 km west of Tbilisi, which is the capital and the country’s largest city.
The new airport has been designed by the Dutch architectural company UNStudio, which said that the airport will have a clear structural layout creating an all-encompassing and protective space.
The space will be structured around a central exterior which will be used for departing passengers. The transparent space around this central point will be “designed to ensure that the flows of passengers are smooth and that departure and arrival flows do not coincide,” said the design company.
Rendering of the exterior departures and arrivals area of the soon-to-be-built King David the Builder International Airport in Kutaisi, Georgia. Image courtesy of UNStudio.
Further detailing the modern airport design, the 4,000 square-meter terminal building will house a central arrivals hall, a check-in area with a lounge, café, and car rental facilities.
The terminal building will also have “three gates for departure with retail, cafés, a CIP (commercially important persons) lounge area and external garden, and arrival area with customs and offices for border police and an administrative area with staff rooms and press conference facilities,” said UNStudio.
In addition, the 55 meter-high air traffic control tower will be designed to complement the design of the terminal. The focal point of the tower will be the air traffic control cabin on the top level.
Rendering of the air traffic control tower of the soon-to-be-built King David the Builder International Airport in Kutaisi, Georgia. Image courtesy of UNStudio.
The Georgian government expects the new airport to be completed by late summer to the early fall of this year.
Expressing a feeling of vital importance for the project in Kutaisi, President Saakashvili said in a statement that:
This city must also have an international airport, with flights in every direction. Planes should fly to Munich, London, New York, Shanghai, Istanbul and etc. from here. The main goal is to work with companies that have low budgets and provide low prices.
Low budget companies have trouble coming to Georgia because the prices at the Tbilisi airport are not flexible yet. However, since we started talking about this airport, the situation is improving there. Because the main highway will pass Kutaisi, this airport will service passengers not only from Tbilisi but from Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia as well. This will also cause a lowering of the tariffs at the Tbilisi airport.
We don’t have high incomes, but people should still be able to travel, do business, and study, that is why they should be able to fly more inexpensively. Kutaisi will be a stimulator not only for this city, but for the rest of Georgia as well. We have to bring low budget companies here, which will compete with other airports so that they cannot artificially increase costs anymore. The runway is already under construction.
Georgian government said, “The length of the runway is 2,600 meters, and this airport will be able to receive any type of aircraft. Considering the environment and climate conditions, this airport will not only have meaning for Georgia, but for the entire Asia-Europe corridor.”
The government added that this project is also important because the “local population will be employed during and after construction.”
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