A CABLE cleat maker has secured a significant deal to send equipment to a new Asian airport.

Ellis, in Rillington, near Scarborough, is supplying cleats to the King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA), near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Bosses say its products are being installed ahead of the airport’s opening next year.

The site will have a 670,000sq metre passenger terminal complex, and cater for about 80 million people every year.

Ellis’ cleats are designed to restrain cables and can withstand forces generated in a short circuit, and Tony Conroy, the firm’s export sales director, said they are being fitted in substations and service tunnels.

He said: “The airport is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the world today and securing such significant involvement in it is a resounding endorsement of our strategy of appointing local distributors in key export markets.

“As with so many of the export orders we secure, the market knowledge and expertise our local distributor brought to the table proved absolutely vital in delivering the specification.

“Our Emperor cleats have been tried, tested and have delivered in some of the most demanding environments on the planet.”

Building work on the KAIA site began in 2006, and when finished it will include 46 gates, 94 boarding bridges and more than 37 miles of baggage belts.

The deal strengthens Ellis’ presence in Saudi Arabia after The Northern Echo previously revealed it won one of its largest orders to help expand The Shamiya Haram, part of the holy mosque in Mecca.

Workers are quadrupling the mosque’s size to cater for more than two million worshippers, with Ellis’ cleats used to secure power cables throughout the building's 75,000sq metre central utility complex (CUC).

Bosses say the CUC will feature a 24-chiller plant, a generator plant and grey water treatment unit as well as a central waste handling facility and water tanks and pump rooms.

Ellis, founded in 1962 by former RAF bomber pilot turned plumber Arthur Ellis, who flew more than 90 missions in the Second World War, has also sent cleats and straps to the Areva European Pressurised Reactor (AEPR) in China’s Guangdong province.

The AEPR plant is part of the Taishan Nuclear Power Project, a joint venture between EDF and China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group.