East Africa’s airports – where some are gems and some are not …

EAST AFRICA’S AIRPORTS – THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

(Posted 22nd December 2014)

(Artist’s impression of the remodeled Kigali International Airport)

As the year comes to an end it is perhaps the time to look back, and forward, about airport experiences in the region and recall what airports are going to see major construction, and which others not.

As a regular visitor to Rwanda the arguably best airport transformation in the region took place in Kigali, where a formerly rather provincial appearance gave way to a modern look of glass, steel and marble. This transformation, which took place over the last two years, is now all but complete. A new premium lounge, the Pearl Lounge, has more than doubled in size and non-premium passengers can, subject to space being available, against a modest fee gain access and enjoy this oasis of peace and tranquility.

The number of check in counters was nearly tripled during the rebuilding, the passenger handling flow optimized and the departure lounge space more than tripled with six departure gates as opposed to the previous two – and available seating upped also to allow for enough space when two or three flights depart at almost the same time.

The arriving / departing passenger separation was enhanced and the growing transit passenger volume factored in by providing a separate terminal access for RwandAir’s faithful flying beyond Kigali.

The RCAA, short for Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority, did an A1 job with the remodeling and if that is not enough, a brand new international airport at Bugesera is expected to open in four or five years.

Elsewhere, in Nairobi to be precise, has the long overdue Terminal 1A opened and is now the exclusive home of Kenya Airways and the airline’s SkyTeam partners, at last providing the space needed on the ground to cater for the substantial increase in fleet, destinations and passenger numbers over the past few years. Premium and economy class passenger flows, while following the same pattern, have separate entrances and processing lines, including at immigration and then at the security check, giving premium passengers the long awaited fast track lanes, before they can head to one of the two brand new lounges, Simba or Pride, where state of the art facilities await guests, emphasis on guests, not just passengers.

A new ‘temporary’ terminal, a misnomer of course as the facility, while largely prefabricated, has been assembled on site and will probably be in use for some 10 – 15 years to boost the airport’s overall capacity.

The next step then will be a refurbishment of what used to be Units 1, 2 and 3, the latter domestic, alongside a completely new arrivals section, which will finally separate all traffic streams as demanded by ICAO and then allowing for FAA Category 1 certification, a prerequisite for direct flights to and from the US.

The big one for Nairobi will be the addition of a second runway, for which NEMA hearings are now going underway, and the construction of the new ‘Greenfield Terminal’ which will add a further 20 million passenger capacity to East Africa’s most important hub airport.

The airports in Malindi and Kisumu too have seen a facelift and upgraded facilities, allowing for more passengers to be handled in greater comfort, while meeting the requirements of separate traffic streams and enhanced security measures.

Enter Dar es Salaam into the fray, only recently revisited, where a completely new international terminal, Terminal 3, is under construction. When complete it will be able to handle at least 6.5 million passengers. It is expected to process all international flights while the present Terminal 2 will then be turned into a proper unified domestic terminal, where according to information received recently safari flights, general aviation and domestic departures by Fastjet, Precision Air and Air Tanzania will be checked in. Safari flights and general aviation are presently based in Terminal 1, something not all hotel limo drivers or taxi drivers seem to understand which has regularly caused problems when passengers found themselves dropped and stranded at the wrong terminal.

Kilimanjaro International, located between the town of Moshi and the city of Arusha, is also undergoing expansion work and refurbishment, bringing the two most important airports in Tanzania into the 21st century with state of the art technologies and passenger comfort expected in this day and age.

No work plans are known for the airport in Bujumbura, where more airlines are now regularly stopping over. Intercontinental flights by Brussels Airlines are calling on Buja three times a week, while RwandAir and Kenya Airways have multiple daily connections to Kigali and Nairobi. FlyDubai is the latest airline to offer flights to Burundi, three times a week via Entebbe.

And with Entebbe does the review end. There has been no change whatsoever from past experiences described here. Perimeter check points are poorly designed and offer passengers no shelter against rain but make sure that shoes and trousers get a layer of mud on them, as the area is not paved either. While the parking area is paved, it is too without shelter from the elements and when, in the absence of any escalators and elevators, one has to climb an open air staircase to reach the departure area, many passengers have in the past arrived in the terminal soaked to the skin, when the skies opened up as they came to Entebbe to leave for home or go on a business trip.

And so the order stands, with Kigali now outranking their regional neighbours for being compact, user friendly and spanking new, followed by Nairobi’s Terminal 1A, the new home of Kenya Airways, then perhaps Malindi which has really impressed users after the upgrade earlier this year, followed by Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam and last, our own Entebbe where user friendliness has gone AWOL and where talk about a major modernization and expansion for years now is just that, talk. Watch this space.