This airport will provide a huge access point for travellers into and out of Africa.
The Rwandan airport will cost a huge £1.6 billion and is located 40 kilometres from Kigali – the capital of the country.
It is expected that the airport will be the most significant in Africa with completion expected in 2026.
The new facility will boast a 130,000-square-meter main terminal building capable of accommodating 8 million passengers a year, a figure expected to rise to over 14 million in the following decades, reports CNN.
There will also be a cargo terminal in the airport which will accommodate 150,000 tons of cargo a year.
Kigali International Airport is the existing airport in the area but this new airport will provide a major upgrade.
Jules Ndenga, CEO of Aviation Travel and Logistics Holding, the Rwandan government-owned company that is overseeing construction, said: “I’m amazed, it’s like a dream come true to see the impact and magnitude of this project to the population.
“We are really impassioned to see the efforts completed and starting operations.”
The airport will help Rwanda, which is landlocked in the center of Africa, achieve its aim of becoming the continent’s centrepiece for air travel.
It is hoped that Rwanda will become a hub for business, tourism, trade and travel.
The airport will help solve an issue of a lack of connections across Africa and will help unleash its potential in the aviation business.
For RwandAir CEO Yvonne Manzi Makolo, the problem of connectivity presents the “biggest challenge” to the African aviation industry.
“The continent is huge, it’s vast, but it’s difficult and unpredictable traveling within it … and it’s extremely expensive,” Makolo said.
But the new airport could be a solution to this issue with new routes permitted and new measures put in place by authorities to help solve the problem.
