On December 3, 2013, the president officiated the groundbreaking ceremony for the world-class
greenfield terminal at the
Jomo Kenyatta international airport.
Yup, the project got canceled, leaving many Kenyans with unanswered questions.
Was this just another of the many empty promises the government never fulfilled?
For better understanding, it's essential to look back at the airport's history and why
building a new terminal was proposed in the first place.
In 1945, the British colonial government started discussing the need for a new airport.
They were concerned that the existing airport in Eastleigh that served as a dual military
and civilian airport was inadequate.
The runways were short, with limited space for expansion needed to handle the bigger
civilian airliners.
On the other hand, Wilson airport was the general aviation charter business hub.
In addition, Nairobi had become an important transit between Europe and South Africa.
Ultimately a decision was MADE to build a new civilian-only airport.
Construction of the airport started in January 1954.
The engineers utilized forced labor extensively, most of whom were MauMau prisoners.
Finally, in March 1958, the airport was officially opened as Embakasi Airport.
The airport quickly grew into the third busiest in Africa after Cairo and Johannesburg, requiring
the expansion of the terminal building to its practical limit.
Initially, the plan was to build a new international terminal adjacent to the existing one.
In addition, a future runway would also be constructed parallel to the existing one placing
the terminals in the center.
However, to complete this at the original terminal area, the construction would have
required the relocation of Embakasi village, which was home to 90% of airport employees.
Therefore, the consensus was to build the new terminal to the southeast of the existing
runway.
The old Embakasi airport terminal would be abandoned and repurposed for office space
and aviation-related facilities.
The future runway location would be 1.25 miles southeast of the existing one placing the
terminal buildings in between, which was the original vision.
Here is the master plan from the original proposal document submitted to the world bank
for funding.
You can see the planners' vision for the runway and the future identical terminals, which
would have been built in phases as needed.
The first phase was the construction of the main terminal that we know today, which was
between 1972 and 1977.
President Moi officially opened the new airport in 1978 and changed the name to Jomo Kenyatta
international airport honoring the country's first president.
Per the master plan, the new airport would meet demands until 1988, hence the plan for
additional terminals expansion phases.
Fast forward, and Nairobi became a top business destination, the tourism industry was doing
well, and Kenya airways joined SkyTeam.
JKIA had transformed into an important transit hub.
But, unfortunately, by the early two thousand, the airport's facilities were being strained
beyond their limits.
Transit passengers routinely complained of insufficient seating, lack of food places,
poor lighting, and even inadequate toilets.
—all the things you don't want to characterize the main gateway to the country.
You see, when the airport was built, the design was to handle 2.5 million passengers.
I can tell you that the airport hit its capacity in 1994 with a 2.8 million passenger throughput.
By 2005, the airport handled more than 4.2 million passengers, well over its capacity.
Unfortunately, the original masterplan, which had plans for additional terminals, seemed
to have been lost and forgotten.
After being shamed internationally and being rated as one of the worst airports in the
world, KAA finally woke up from its slumber.
First, the authority announced a roadmap for development that would involve renovations
on units 1,2 and 3 and construction of unit 4 from scratch.
Later, these units were renamed Terminal 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D.
However, an even more ambitious airport project dubbed the greenfield terminal was part of
the flagship projects announced in 2008 for the Kenya vision 2030.
This word-class terminal would be built from scratch with a capacity of 20 million passengers,
eight air bridges, 50 international check-in counters, and an additional runway.
mmmh, That's familiar.
Remember the original masterplan?
Anyway, the greenfield terminal opening schedule was sometime
in 2017.
Well and good.
And so, the wait began.
Then,
And now we are back to where we started.
In December 2013, the president officially broke ground at the construction site of the
future greenfield terminal.
Three years later, in April 2016, KAA canceled the project, Here is the statement;
The Kenya Airports Authority wishes to inform members of the public that the JKIA Greenfield
Terminal project has been terminated with immediate effect by the authority.
The decision was based on prevailing operational, economic, and financial dynamics, which have
been on a downward trend over the last three years.
KAA and even the president clarified the cancelation in later reports.
This involved fast-tracking the remainder of the construction of the 2.5 million capacity
terminal 1A and building a prefabricated terminal 2 with a capacity of 2.5 million.
As a result, the two new terminals combined with the existing ones increased the total
capacity for the airport to 7.5 million.
In addition, the passenger traffic was 6.5 million that year.
Plans were also in line to increase the capacity to 10.5 million once terminal 1B,1C, and 1D
renovations were complete.
The upgrades of those terminals are currently ongoing in 2022.
The project was also riddled with controversies.
KAA had paid a downpayment of Ksh4.3 billion to the contractor.
However, the contractor sued KAA for breach of contract.
KAA, on its part, demanded back the Sh4.3 billion paid as a downpayment.
In August 2021, KAA managing director stated that plans were underway to revive the project.