Widening Africa’s Gateway Ethiopia’s new airport terminal will increase capacity to handle 25 million passengers a year
Given its historical, diplomatic and political significance to the continent, Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa is often referred to as “the political capital of Africa.” The city hosts numerous continental and international organizations, including the African Union Headquarters and the UN Economic Commission for Africa. It is also the base for Africa’s largest aviation group, Ethiopian Airlines.
Regarded by many as the gate to Africa, Addis Ababa Bole International Airport is one of the busiest passenger transit stations on the continent, receiving tens of thousands of tourists and transit passengers every day.
In 2018 Addis Ababa surpassed Dubai as the top transit hub for long-haul passengers to Africa. Under this condition, the existing terminal passenger handling capacity has long been unable to meet the ever-increasing needs. The Ethiopian Government then launched a new airport terminal expansion project to double the airport’s annual handling capacity to 22 million passengers, making it the biggest in Africa. China Communications Construction Co. (CCCC) signed a contract for the construction of the Bole International Airport Terminal Expansion project in 2012 and started the construction in 2015. The expansion project, which will be fully completed at the end of 2020, has two contract sections called Contract I and Contract II.
Li Xiudong, Project General Manager with CCCC, told Chinafrica that under Contract
I, the expansion of Terminal 2 is a complex and multi-system integration project with a total area of 118,000 square meters.
The work under Contract II consists of the expansion of Terminal 1, construction of a new VIP Terminal and associated work, said Li, adding that “the new VIP terminal construction is totally different from the work we have done before. It includes a presidential lounge and a VIP lounge.”
Li, who has traveled to 16 countries in Africa, said this airport is the top entry point to Africa.
Ethiopian Airport Enterprise CEO Eskinder Alemu told Chinafrica that the project saw cooperation with China in areas of financing, construction and skill transfer.
“Over the course of the project, there were minor design changes to accommodate more passengers and Ethiopian Airlines financed the changes it requested,” said Alemu.
The expanded terminal features state-ofthe-art airport facilities, elegant and spacious check-in, arrival and departure halls, various duty-free shops and restaurants, taking the entire passenger experience to a whole new level.
Routing China-africa
The project fund for Contract I is a concessional loan fully funded by the Exportimport Bank of China while the fund for Contract II is a preferential loan of which 85 percent comes from the same bank and 15 percent from the Ethiopian Government. The project comes as the national carrier is adding flights between Addis Ababa and Chinese cities by increasing its weekly passenger and cargo flights to 50, up from 35, to five destinations in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chengdu and Guangzhou.
The Ethiopian carrier has had a presence in China since 1973. As the first African airline and as one of a handful of foreign airline pioneers at that time, it has been a witness to the economic transformation of China.
Now the flagship carrier is planning to open new flight routes to Chongqing, Shenzhen and Zhengzhou. This came about as it signed a freight route cooperation agreement in May 2019 with the related partners in China under the Belt and Road Initiative. In addition to planning these new Chinese destinations, the airline has announced plans to increase its flight frequencies to Guangzhou and Shanghai.
The expansion is aimed at meeting the increasing demand for flights to Africa from Chinese business people, investors and tourists, according to Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines Group. In 2017, the airlines named the first of its kind in Africa Boeing 787-9 as “Beijing.”
Ethiopia sees the terminal expansion project as crucial to meeting the needs of the large numbers of Chinese tourists it wants to attract. Ethiopia recorded $190 million in revenue from 50,626 Chinese tourists that visited the country in 2018, according to Ethiopia’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. China is the third largest source of tourists visiting Ethiopia, only after the United States and Britain.
Other African countries also hope to improve on the relatively low number of Chinese visitors. Kenya, the third-largest tourism-driven economy in sub-saharan Africa, is an example. Tourism contributes $7.9 billion, or about 8.8 percent, to the country’s GDP. According to Xinhua News Agency, at least 230,500 Chinese nationals visited Kenya in 2018. The number is a significant surge from 192,300 in 2017 and 131,900 in 2016, said the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. However, the country, which depends on Addis Ababa’s airport dubbed “East Gate of Africa,” hopes to attract many times more than this number of Chinese tourists each year. The revenues of its tourism sector directly and indirectly supported 1.1 million Kenyan people in 2018, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
A 2018 report titled Sovereigns - Africa, Closer Trade and Investment Ties With China released by ratings agency Moody’s said 10 African countries, including South Africa, Mauritius, Morocco, Egypt and Kenya, are most likely to benefit from increased numbers of visitors from China. The view is backed by the 30 percent annual growth in the number of Chinese arrivals since 2012.
Ethiopian Airlines has started facilitating a visa hub service to 35 African countries, helping Chinese and other foreign nationals to directly travel to Ethiopia and beyond without the need to transit through Beijing, where most African countries’ embassies are located.
“The visa scheme will facilitate easier air travel for Chinese experts and business people and reduces their financial cost,” Gebremariam said. “We believe the visa scheme will significantly boost Chinaafrica trade ties and we are very excited about it.” he added.
In January 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, along with African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, presided over an official inauguration of Terminal 2 for international passengers under Contract I expansion project, side with opening the luxury Ethiopian Skylight Hotel, the biggest hotel in Addis Ababa and home of the largest Chinese restaurant in Africa.
Ahmed wants the Ethiopian Airlines not to be complacent with the new terminal, but rather to aim for an even bigger facility with a capacity to annually accommodate at least 100 million passengers.
Model of cooperation
The year 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Ethiopia. Currently China is the biggest trading partner and largest investor in Ethiopia. The Economic and Commercial Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia Liu Yu said the new terminal is a catalyst and game changer for the economic development of the nation.
“China has proven itself to be a true brother and dependable partner of Ethiopia and the relationship has become a model for China-africa cooperation,” said Liu.
The terminal expansion project created a large number of jobs for local citizens. According to Li, currently, the project has employed more than 1,000 local workers for its completion phase, and up to date it has created more than 5,000 employments.
Li forecasts the number of passengers of the airport per year will surge to 40 million, exceeding the new terminal’s design capacity in a few years. He says CCCC is looking forward to undertaking a new “mega hub” airport planned outside Addis Ababa, which would involve integrating with Bole International Airport to meet the airlines’ aspiration to link Africa with the rest of the world. CA