ETHIOPIA: Work has begun on a major African hub airport at Bishoftu which is to be connected to Addis Ababa and the existing Bole International Airport by a 38 km railway.
Ethiopian Railway Corp is the sole domestic institution responsible for railway development, and it said the project is to be undertaken by a local company.
Prime Minister Dr Abiy Ahmed Ali officially launched construction of the airport with a ceremony on January 10, when he told local media ‘what distinguishes this railway project from the Addis Ababa – Djibouti railway we previously built is that it will be constructed entirely by domestic companies’.
Trains will run at 120 to 200 km/h, to offer fast and efficient travel times between the capital and the two airports.
The US$12·5bn hub airport designed by Zaha Hadid Architects is being built around 40 km southeast of the capital. It will be an altitude of 1 910 m, around 400 m lower than the existing airport to provided better operating conditions for aircraft.
The airport’s first phase is scheduled to open in 2030 with a capacity of 60 million passengers/year, significantly more than the current airport which is nearing its maximum throughput of 25 million passengers/year. The new facility is intended to be as major hub for the continent, with design a capacity of up to 110 million passengers/year when complete, of which 80% would be transit passengers.
