Six international companies advance to second stage of Bukhara airport tender

Uzbekistan Airports announced the completion of the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) evaluation phase, which officially ran from March 11 to May 21.

Following a thorough assessment of submitted applications, the Interagency Tender Commission finalized the list of global operators that successfully cleared the initial screening. The commercial potential of the megaproject originally drew formal expressions of interest from 51 enterprises spanning Uzbekistan and 23 foreign countries, including Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Poland, Albania, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Canada, Japan, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

Based on an exhaustive technical, legal, and financial diagnostic of the applicants, the steering commission narrowed the continuous list to a competitive shortlist of six international organizations. These select bidders have been cleared to participate in the second stage of the international procurement process – the Request for Proposals (RFP).

The government originally initiated the tender process in March to address infrastructure bottlenecks and optimize regional connectivity. The chosen operational model splits structural responsibilities between stakeholders, under which the selected private partner will finance and oversee the construction of a modern passenger terminal, while the state maintains long-term jurisdiction over airside airfield infrastructure.

The strategic layout of the greenfield project was reviewed by the president in April. Regional planners have allocated 370 hectares of land outside the historic city limits to house the aviation harbor and its supporting commercial clusters. Integrating the facility into local transportation networks will require building a 23.8-kilometer dedicated expressway, featuring two major overpasses, nine pedestrian underpasses, and eight vehicle bridges.

Technical designs indicate that the newly planned 3.3-kilometer runway will accommodate wide-body aircraft of all variants. Once fully operational, the main passenger terminal is expected to handle a peak capacity of up to 1,200 passengers per hour, substantially elevating Bukhara’s logistics capacity and integration with global tourism routes.