Ethiopia on Saturday started building what the prime minister says will be Africa\u2019s biggest airport when completed in the town of Bishoftu, southeast of the capital Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n
The massive travel hub is expected to cost around $12.7 billion and eventually be able to handle some 110 million passengers a year at full capacity. Construction is expected to take five years.<\/p>\n
Partly financed by national carrier Ethiopian Airlines, the Bishoftu hub is expected to replace the capital\u2019s Bole Airport, which can handle up to 25 million passengers annually.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Saturday announced construction of \u201cthe largest aviation infrastructure project in Africa\u2019s history\u201d had begun.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis multi-airport strategy aims to future-proof Ethiopia\u2019s role as Africa\u2019s leading air transport gateway,\u201d he said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
He added the project will strengthen Ethiopian Airlines\u2019 global competitiveness, enhance African connectivity, expand trade and tourism corridors and position Ethiopia as a major intercontinental hub.<\/p>\n
The project includes a multi-lane motorway to link the new facility to the capital and a 38-kilometre high-speed railway which Abiy said would reach speeds of up to 124 mph (200 kph).<\/p>\n
The African Development Bank has earmarked $500 million towards the project and Ethiopian authorities are in talks to raise further tranches with the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and the US Development Finance Corporation.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia hopes to attract foreign tourism despite the ongoing armed conflict in its two most populous regions \u2014 Amhara and Oromia \u2014 with Bishoftu located in the latter.<\/p>\n
The future airport, which will sit on a 35 square kilometre site, has already seen the displacement of 2,500 farmers who were re-housed last year at a cost of $350 million, Ethiopian Airlines CEO Mesfin Tasew Bekele said in November.<\/p>\n
Ethiopia, Africa\u2019s second-most populous country with some 130 million inhabitants, has launched major infrastructure projects in recent years.<\/p>\n
It officially inaugurated the continent\u2019s largest dam last year and extensive urban renewal projects are underway in Addis Ababa and other major cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ethiopia on Saturday started building what the prime minister says will be Africa\u2019s biggest airport when completed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[63,1409,9467],"class_list":{"0":"post-15141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-mna"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}