Ethiopia is considering building a new big airport with a capacity of 120 million passengers per year, in the outskirts of the capital Addis Ababa, for an investment of USD 4 billion, the website “Focus on Travel News” reported on 4 November.

The new international airport, which construction would span ten years, will have many passenger terminals, four landing strips, and an airport city, we learnt from the same source. It will be the second biggest infrastructure project in terms of investment, after the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is in construction on the Blue Nile (USD 4.8 billion).

The construction of the new airport comes in addition to the expansion project of the current Bole international airport in Addis Ababa, which cost is of USD 350 million. This expansion project should bring the capacity of the Bole airport, currently of 6 million passengers per year, to 22 million passengers in 2018.

The two big airport projects are part of the ambition of the Ethiopian government to turn Addis Ababa into one of the biggest air transportation hubs in Africa.

The government also hopes to use these modern airport infrastructure projects to showcase the country as a favoured tourist destination and top-ranking industrial pole.

The new mega-airport should, moreover, contribute to the achievement of the ambition of the public company Ethiopian Airlines to become the first carrier in Africa.

The company, which currently serves 91 international destinations, is considering bringing its fleet of currently 77 aircraft to 140 aircraft in 2025, year during which the transporter is looking to generate a revenue of over USD 10 billion.