Council ranks JKIA fifth best in Africa
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport has been named the 5th best in Africa in the prestigious 2014 Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards.
The recognition is a boost to the airport, which suffered downturn in 2013 after fire broke out and gutted the arrivals terminal. It has since been struggling to rebuild and upgrade the facility.
ACI (ASQ) is considered as the aviation world class industry’s most comprehensive passenger service programme that aims at allowing airports plan improvements and customer benchmarking services against other airports.
“The stature of JKIA has grown significantly in recent years with the increased passengers and cargo traffic into and out of the facility. We expect even further growth going forward as more capacity is unlocked by on-going works, which will improve level of service, security and controlled access to meet international standards, thus taking advantage of its strategic location of JKIA to position it as the premier aviation hub of Africa,” Kenya Airports Authority managing director Lucy Mbugua said on Tuesday.
The ACI ASQ survey captures passengers’ experience at all airport contact points at more than 300 facilities worldwide.
The ranking comes months after opening of the airport’s new terminal 1A that has a capacity to handle one-way peak hour traffic of 1,500 passengers as it has three floors.
They include duty-free shops, a food court, customer lounges, a mini market among other facilities.
The new prefab terminal 2 is expected to be opened at the end of this month and has a capacity to handle 2.5 million passengers annually.