NAIROBI NEEDS A SECOND RUNWAY – NOW
(Posted 19th September 2016)
A runway incident earlier this evening at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport has once again demonstrated the immediate need to have a second runway. East Africa’s busiest airport came to a standstill, once again, when an incoming Kenya Airways flight from Entebbe, KQ 415, burst its tyres on landing, leaving the aircraft stuck on the runway.
Passengers, none of them came to any harm, were disembarked from the aircraft and bussed to the arrivals terminal.
Kenya Airways subsequently issued the following statement:
All incoming flights bound for Jomo Kenyatta International Airport subsequently, and at great expense to the affected airlines, had to be diverted to Mombasa while flight departures had to be delayed until the runway was eventually cleared after 9 p.m. and flights could resume. Affected passengers and people on the ground were advised to seek information from their airline as to landing of inbound flights and revised take off times for outbound flights.
The incident prompted immediate calls from the aviation fraternity at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to give the building of the second runway top priority and see to it that it is completed at the earliest opportunity.
The second runway was part of the expansion of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport under the ‘Project Greenfield‘ which was launched with much fanfare by President Uhuru Kenyatta only to be scrapped a year and a bit later, leaving contractor and government locked in arguments over compensation while further delaying the construction of the crucially important second runway.
