Showing posts with label JKIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JKIA. Show all posts

Terminal Illness: JKIA on Frommers' 12 Worst Airports in the World

9:20 AM nero
JKIA has had its share of problems in the last few years and now a travel website has given it a rather an unflattering review calling it a "third world construction site."

In a post appropriately titled "Terminal Illness", online travel guidebook website Frommers has classified Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi(NBO) amongst the 10 Worst Airports in the World. According to Frommers,

Some airports deserve special condemnation, though. In some cases, they deserve to be literally condemned. Assembling this top 10 list of misfits I scanned professional surveys and delay statistics and asked my frequent-traveler friends to come up with the ten airports where you'd least like to spend an extra hour.

JKIA


Jomo Kenyatta International Airport ranks 7th on the list. Frommers says this on JKIA:
Nairobi's airport, which aspires to be an international hub, was built to support about 2.5 million passengers and now averages about double that. As a result, the Kenyan government announced plans to expand the airport. That was in 2005. They aren't done yet.

I've been to JKIA, and it reinforces all of the stupid stereotypes about Africa that you wish weren't true. It's hot, ugly, dirty and confusing, full of touts and scam artists and perpetually overcrowded. African airports don't have to be like this, of course: the Marrakesh airport is one of the most beautiful in the world, and Johannesburg's O.R. Tambo airport is at least efficient.

The Kenyan government says construction on a new terminal will begin in January. Perhaps someday, the Nairobi airport improvement project will be finished. Until then, this Third World construction site remains a place for travelers to avoid.

Do you agree with Frommers' drab review of JKIA?

Here is Frommers' 10 Worst Airports:
  1. Chicago Midway Airport
  2. "Paris" Beauvais Airport, France
  3. Newark Airport Terminal B
  4. LaGuardia Airport US Airways Terminal, New York City
  5. Amman Queen Alia Airport
  6. Paris -- Charles de Gaulle Airport, Terminal 3
  7. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi
  8. Moscow Sheremtyevo Airport Terminal B/C, Russia
  9. Manila Airport Terminal 1, Philippines
  10. JFK Airport Terminal 3, New York City
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Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Runway Repairs Delays Flights

12:00 AM nero
The stark reality of past failures to look and plan ahead in good time has once again come home to roost for the Kenya Airports Authority and all the airlines operating from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport last night, when due to urgent repairs and maintenance of runway and taxiway lighting, a significant number of flights were delayed. The aviation fraternity has for long demanded that East Africa’s most important airport requires a second runway so that traffic can continue to arrive and depart in case of an incident on one runway.
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
A regular aviation source from Nairobi said: ‘They told us in advance to reschedule flights during the closure. It seems wiring needed replacement or had to be maintained but with a second runway we would not have had a total closure of Nairobi. We have been telling that to KAA for years but their top ranks just prance about trying to be important. They should be relevant – if they had had the competence to understand issues, we would have a second runway by now and the expansion of the airport would have been finished a year ago. Government should stop putting politicians into such places and employ professionals’.

It was confirmed that a NOTAM, aka notice to airmen, had been issued in advance allowing airlines both inbound and outbound to delay arrivals and departures, though at a cost of annoying passengers and having some of them miss their connecting flights and needing rebooking by their airlines to reach their final destinations.

KAA has announced that a second runway would be constructed but the completion of this crucial piece of new infrastructure may well still take several years. Watch this space for regular updates from the Eastern African aviation scene. 

Source
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