Jomo Kenyatta International Airport’s newly renovated car park will be reopened in August. The car park had been turned into an arrivals terminal after a fire destroyed the airport’s Terminal 1 in 2013 which has since been rebuilt.
The car park is expected to generate an average of Sh 4million into the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA).
According to KAA General Manager for Marketing and Business Development Jimmy Kibati, the facility’s major work is complete and only the security features are waiting to be installed.
“Work at the garage is 95 percent complete and it is currently in operation but only to airport personnel, however, we will open it next month for commercial use,” said Mr. Kibati.
The car park will house 1,300 vehicles and will have an average charge of Sh. 100 per car depending on duration.
Kibati said that they’re installing carbon monoxide detectors and CCTV cameras; adding that securing the facility is one of the measures KAA is putting in place ahead of auditing by a US agency for direct flights to the US.
The US in February granted JKIA Category One status, and later in June, the Department of Transportation (DOT) granted Kenya Airways the first set of licenses as a step towards direct US flights.
The government has committed a total of Sh8.5 billion for the modernization of JKIA in this year’s budget, and plans are underway to construct a second runway able to handle larger aircraft.