Yesterday, a new temporary terminal as it was known during the assembly stage, processed its first commercial flight according to airport sources.
Progress can finally be reported about the new Terminal 2 at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi, which anticipated opening at the beginning of March but had to be delayed to complete pending work.
South African Airways flight SA184 was the first ever to be processed at the new facility, which, when complete, will then handle all domestic departures and arrivals and also a number of regional and international flights, details of which are not available at this stage.
The number of flights will be progressively increased until all operational issues have been resolved and all systems have been cleared for a full-scale opening.
After the new terminal has been opened, estimated to take a few more weeks, the present domestic terminal, previously known as Unit 3 and more recently renamed into Terminal 1 D, will be closed to make space for a complete refurbishment, modernization, and expansion, alongside Terminal 1 B and 1 C, which presently handle international departures for all airlines other than Kenya Airways and their SkyTeam partners, which now operate from the brand new Terminal 1 A.
The new Terminal 2 will bridge the capacity gap at JKIA until the new โGreenfieldโ project has been completed, estimated to be in the 2018/19 time frame, for which construction is slowly getting underway, starting with the addition of a second runway.