Gov’t seeking investors to build new terminal at JKIA

The government says it will have a state-of-the-art terminal at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) before 2027.

Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen says the government will begin the process of inviting investors by September this year.

The CS spoke during the official opening of Air France KLM’s new Africa headquarters in Nairobi, where he described the proposed modern terminal as a game changer in the East African region.

“In the next couple of weeks, at most two months, we should have been able to put in public the expression of interest for investors to come and build a new terminal,” he said.

JKIA now serves an average of 8 million passengers annually, up from the 2 million it served following its construction in 1978.

This has led to inefficiencies and breakdowns, which the government hopes to change in the next 4 years.

“We want to move to 30 million a year...but it will be subject to the expression we are going to put forward an evaluation process and capacity for us to attract a good investment, and I hope in the next three years or so before 2027 we will have a new terminal,” added Murkomen.

Marius van der Ham, AirFrance KLM’s regional manager for the East and Southern Africa, Ghana and Nigeria region, said: “Our decision to open new offices here follows a restricting exercise we finished in 2021. It reveals our Eastern Africa markets, traditionally managed in Nairobi, showed many similarities in terms of competitive landscape in the market place compared to markets in SA and Ghana.”

The new office will provide customers with a wide range of services, even as the airline continues to adopt sustainable measures in its operations.

Zoran Jelkic, Senior VP of the AirFrance KLM Group, noted: “Plans for 2030, we want to reduce emissions by 30% COZ, we want to be next zero in the next 20, 50 years.”

Maarten Brouwer, Dutch Ambassador to Kenya, added: “It’s so difficult to bring two organisations with their own cultures together into one, and this group of airlines have succeeded in bringing together and still maintain old culture.