Construction at JNIA Airport in Dar es Salaam kicks off

TANZANIA Airport Authority (TAA) is currently undergoing a sensitive project for the second phase rehabilitation and upgrading of pavement on its biggest airport in the country in Dar es Salaam, known as “Julius Nyerere International Airport” (JNIA. The project which is a continuation of a successful implementation of the first phase concluded in October 2006, aims at installation of modern facilities to enable safe landing and departure of planes at the airport’s main runways.
According to the status report by TAA, the scope of phase two rehabilitation work includes Airfield Ground Lighting (AGL) which includes the replacement of taxiway edge lighting, precision approach path indicator, windsocks, illuminated signs, control and monitoring apron floodlighting. Earthworks and paving works which includes construction of new taxiway from U to W and from Z to the 23-side of the main runway 05-23. The work, would involve the rehabilitation and extension of runway 14-32 and the rehabilitation of apron terminal one. In apron terminal two, the work involves the rehabilitation of perimeter service road along the apron of terminal two, and a drainage solution for runway 05-23 and apron north terminal two. Another scope of work includes the Environmental work that will consist of civil works in order to improve the environmental situation around the airport territories. The work is linked to the fruits of TANZAVIA project whose objectives is to improve safety. TANZAVIA project means “the functional entity established to consolidate and develop the mutual co-operation known as “Twin Relations” that exists between the governments of the Netherlands and the United Republic of Tanzania. The rehabilitation and the upgrading work is being undertaken by a Netherlands based company, the Interbeton Bv (Tanzania Branch), and the K.B.R company of South Africa, and the Sub-contractor for apron concrete works, A/S Noremco Construction Ltd. All these companies work in collaboration with the local Howard Humphrey Ltd, a consulting engineering firm in the country. All the engineers from clients, consultant, contractor and sub-contractor are cooperatively working hard to accomplish the works by September 2010.
According to TAA’s Manager for Designing and Planning, Engineer George Sambali, the project is expected to be completed within 24 months, and on its completion it will have cost EURO 26 Million, the amount includes total project cost for both consultancy and supervision and works for rehabilitation and up-grading. This is co-financed by 52 percent from an ORET grant from the government of Netherlands, and the remaining 48 percent from Tanzania being a loan by the ING Bank of Netherlands. The rehabilitation and upgrading of pavements and other facilities at JNIA project had been called for due to ageing (about 27 years ago ) of the existing ones. The pavements became operational in 1982 and are currently in poor condition due to physical weathering. Their poor state is linked to undulations, cracking and pavement deformations, says Engineer Sambali added that a good result out of the rehabilitation would bring in compliance with the internationally applicable and acceptable conditions that would conform to the international standards set for airports. According to him, TAA decided to undergo such a massive rehabilitation work due to deterioration of pavements that causes inconveniences resulting into frequent failures of aircrafts during taking off and landing. Airports needs to have modern facilities to enable safety landing of planes. Regular check-ups of the safety materials installed at the airports is of vital importance, and the outdated ones needs to be removed and replaced by new ones. The main contractors, engineers and the designers ensures used materials most of which are imported do conform to the standards set. The distance of the runway which measures 3 km away is capable of landing any type of an aircraft, be it an airbus, heavy cargo planes, Boeings 747 & 767. Apart from the foreign materials, contractors also use gravel, sand and cement which are locally obtained. But for the Apron, they are using the anti-kerosene types of cement that resist jet fuel. Other materials used such as fixtures and fittings for lumps and associated accessories have all been imported as they are not locally manufactured. Plants and machineries have also been imported, these includes, compactors and rollers. Julius Nyerere International airport has been in operation now for about 27 years since its first inaugural in 1982 serving International, domestic as well as regional flight schedules. The life span for airport pavement and power supply ranges from ten to fifteen (10-15) years of which the pavement and power supply system has overlapped. From the above point of view, the need for modernization arose for rehabilitating the infrastructure whose work is currently in progress. In its completion, the work would enable proper visual aids with the use of the ground lighting mechanism which have been designed to work for 30-50 years, but the normal cable would work for less than 20-30 years prior to the replacement. Julius Nyerere International Airport was built in 1954 in the currently called “terminal one” serving unscheduled general aviation flights with about 13 operators