Kumasi airport expansion 77% complete, ready in June 2022

The expansion works at the Kumasi International Airport is scheduled to be completed in June 2022, as work done on the €124.9 million project is currently 77 percent, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said.

During an inspection of the ongoing works at the airport, the contractors of the project, Contracta Construction UK Limited, disclosed that the terminal building was 88 percent complete with the road network also at 93 percent complete.

Also, the contractors said, the apron was at 89 percent complete while the air traffic control and rescue and firefighting services stood at 53 percent completion stage.

The scope of work includes the extension of existing runway pavement from 1,981 meters to 2,320 meters, the construction of a new taxi link and apron, two new apron parking stands, and aeronautical ground lighting systems.

Others are the design and building of a terminal with the capacity to handle eight hundred thousand passengers per annum, an 11 MW substation, as well the provision of new bulk utility services, independent of the existing utility services for the airport.

Phase three of the project involves the construction of the air traffic control building, a fire building station, as well as the expansion of the existing runway pavement.

The expansion of the Kumasi International Airport, which begun in 2018, is being financed by Santander, Deutsche Bank, and UKEF.

President Akufo-Addo visited the project site on Friday, as part of his 4-day working visit to the Ashanti Region.

It is expected that the expansion of the Kumasi Airport will give Kumasi the much-needed grounds to reinforce its position as an important commercial and transformation sector in Ghana and West Africa.

President Akuffo-Addo, during the sod-cutting ceremony in 2018, said the expansion of the airport is a critical part of the government’s vision to expand the frontiers of the aviation industry in the country and to realize the dream of making Ghana an aviation hub in the sub-region.