Plans to ease congestion at KIA airport is in place

BOTH Domestic and International passengers destined and boarding at Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA), the second largest in the country will now be relieved of the long standing congestion currently disturbing them at the airport. This follows plans which are already in place that aims at executing a major rehabilitation work which is scheduled to take place at the airport at any time from now. Sources have said In order to accomplish the project, the Royal Government of the Netherlands has issued a grant of Tsh. 57.5 billion in total value, the money it had pledged last November to Tanzania Airport Authority (TAA) after it had signed a contract for the expansion work. In view of this, a major extensive rehabilitation work is due to take place for the expansion of ground work services at the airport. This will be done for the expansion of the main runway to enable safety landing of planes. Other rehabilitation work would involve the expansion of the passengers’ reception lounge, luggage inspection section, as well as modern car parking. These would be rehabilitated so as to accommodate as more passengers as they would be required. According to the Managing Director of the Kilimanjaro Airport Development Company (KADCO) the company which is mandated to supervise all the operational activities at the airport, Marco Van Kreeke the move is in line to curb the congestion of the passengers when checking in and out of the airport.

Kilimanjaro International Airport as it look from outside its main gate.

Other reasons he mentioned is that, the completion of the rehabilitation work will help elevate the current status and the reputation of the airport in order to meet the demand and fair in competition with other airports both domestically and internationally. Sources said that, the first phase of the rehabilitation work would involve the preparation of the architectural drawings of the airport which is expected to start early next year when money pledged by the donors would be out. The drawings are expected to be completed between June and August next year (2012) and the work will be done and closely supervised by a Netherlands based consultancy firm of its National Airport Corporation (NACO) Earlier, the government of Tanzania and that one of the Netherlands signed a contract in November 2011 under which the latter would disburse funds to enable the rehabilitation work for the expansion of ground work services at KIA airport whose construction is set to commence in the year 2013.

US Presidential plane at the KIlimanjaro International Airport. This was when the 43rd US President Mr. George .Walker Bush visited Tanzania.

According to him, once the work is complete, the airport expects to increase the number of passengers as this would match with the number of aircrafts at the airport. However, he said adding that, at KIA the total number of passengers has increased from 200,000 in 2002 and is expected to reach 650,000 passengers by end of this year, statistics shows that, this is an increase of over 300 percent. When contacted for comment on the development of airports in the country, an anonymous government official from TAA said that, KIA is an international airport, the second leading in the country, despite of its international status, still it lacks important ground work service facilities it deserves. He said the government has long been looking at the possibility to help putting the operation to deserve its international status in order to match competitively with other airports in the world In 2005 Tanzania Airport Authority (TAA) underwent a sensitive project for rehabilitation and upgrading of pavement on its biggest airport in the country, as by then named Dar es Salaam International Airport (DIA) which currently known as “Mwalimu Julius Nyerere International Airport”. The rehabilitation work was done on Taxiway, apron and other facilities such as Airfield Ground Lighting (AGL) and sewerage systems. The work is linked to the fruits of TANZAVIA project whose objectives are to improve safety. 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. 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.