New airport terminal gets cabinet approval

Last Updated 14 years ago by Kenya Engineer

The Greenfield project finally got a go ahead nod from the cabinet after a long time battle in controvesy.The cabinet in a meeting chaired by President Kibaki directed that the project should proceed with the involvement of all stakeholders.

The Sh55 billion project, which will see to the development of a new terminal at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) was scheduled to begin in August this year and end in 2015.This was however not possible following a lot of controversy arising from the awarding of the tender.

The Greenfield terminal will have a floor area of 172, 000 m2 with 50 international and 10 domestic check-in positions; 32 contact and 8 remote gates; an apron with 45 parking bays and linking taxiways and a Railway terminal.

The terminal to be developed in two phases will expand JKIA’s capacity by 12 million passengers to more than 20 million passengers a year in Phase I. It will have a parking capacity, including “remote parking” for 60 aircraft bringing the total numbers of available parking slots over one hundred aircraft. It will also separate the arrival and departures gates.

The terminal complements a five- year plan that began in 2007 to expand the capacity of the airport from 2.5 million people a year to 6 million to date. The previous expansion plan which incorporates the construction of terminal 4 increased the size by creating a parking for 37 aircraft up from 20 previously. This phase cost a whopping US$200 million.

The green field project has a phase II. This will be constructed after the second runway which will connect the green field terminal Phase I. Phase II will expand capacity by the same proportions as Phase I. This will raise the size of JKIA to more than 600,000M2.

The expansion comes at time when Kenya Airways, whose major hub is JKIA, are planning to increase its fleet from the current 39 to 107 over the next ten years.