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The United States has announced that it will provide significant funding for the construction of a brand new Ethiopia airport. The new airport in Ethiopia that has been designed to be the largest airport in Africa.
The airport will be based in Bishoftu which is about 40 kilometres south of Addis Ababa. The current estimates indicate the construction from ground breaking to completion might come to a tune of around USD10 billion which is equivalent to around Sh1.3 trillion.
The financing was announced by US Senior Advisor for Africa Massad Boulos after a state visit to Ethiopia.
“I am just coming from Ethiopia… where we talked about [United States] support for the new airport project and it is going to be probably the biggest airport [in Africa] and one of the biggest in the world. It is a USD10 billion project, probably more,” he said.
“The US International Development Finance Corporation and other institutions are supporting. We are also working closely with many projects relating to Boeing. Boeing has a very, very strong partnership, as we know, with Ethiopian Airlines, with Royal Air Maroc, with many other airlines across the continent including Gabon, Angola, and the DRC.”
In August 2024, Ethiopian Airlines chief executive officer Mesfin Tasew, estimated that the first phase of construction would cost an estimated USD6 billion which was equivalent to around Sh780 billion.
“It is a five-year project (that) will be finalized in 2029. It will be the biggest in Africa. Phase one alone will cost at least $6 billion,” Tasew had said.
The airport will have capacity to handle 100 million passengers a year and provide parking for 270 aircraft. “The first phase includes the construction of the airport facility with a capacity of 60 million passengers per year and the completion of phase two of the airport project will grow to handling more than 100 million passengers per year.”
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When complete, the new airport will handle international flights and cargo while the current airport at Bole will handle domestic flights. The new airport will also feature an airport city that will have malls, hotels, recreation areas, and direct rail and expressway links to Addis Ababa.
