Modified Entebbe airport terminal ready for launch

As the country prepares to host the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Group of 77 (G-77) + China South summits starting Monday next week, the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) has revealed that works on upgrading the arrival and departure units, and expanding the parking space at Entebbe International Airport will be completed and commissioned before the end of this week.

The NAM guests, according to the released official programme, will start jetting into the country on Sunday, January 14, through the airport, before being driven to their respective accredited places of accommodation where they will be commuting from to Speke Resort Munyonyo, where the official summits will be held.

Without mentioning the exact day, the manager of public affairs at UCAA, Mr Vianney Luggya, told this publication yesterday that the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Engineering Brigade, which is working on the modification of the terminal building project, including erection of a departure canopy and arrivals hall expansion, are winding up and the facility will be opened for use by the public this week.

“Departing passengers will no longer need to lift their baggage from the parking as it has been but they will now be driven straight and dropped off at the terminal building. Similarly on arrival, the area has been expanded and now we have more space and a more ambient environment in which delegates and all the other passengers will be facilitated. The facility is to be opened to the public this week. The actual commissioning will be done at a date to be announced,” he said.

All mechanisms, he said, have been put in place to ensure that delegates are smoothly welcomed into the country and as well seen off at ease without struggling as it was during the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm).

“We have enhanced the aircraft parking aprons. We now have more parking capacity and as I speak, we are able to park between 60 and 100 aircraft depending on the size,” he said.
Starting Monday next week up to January 23, between 1,000 and 1,500 delegates, including more than 70 heads of states from 134 countries are expected to attend the two summits that will run back-to-back at Speke Resort Munyonyo.
At least 100 countries had by Sunday evening confirmed attending the two summits. 

The delegates include 27 heads of states, 45 ministers of foreign affairs, and ambassadors at the United Nations in New York.
The yet to be commissioned project, Mr Luggya said, is part of the general airport upgrade under the bigger National Aviation Master Plan, which is aimed at enhancing general passenger facilitation.
“The final project, which is the on-going construction of a new terminal building connecting to the current terminal, will be completed in July 2024,” he said.

The NAM summit, which will run under the theme: “Deepening cooperation for shared global affluence”, will start on January 15 and end on January 20, while the G-77 conference will be held between January 21 and 23, with a main focus on “Leaving no one behind”.
Speaking during the tour of the airport on Tuesday last week, The ICT minister, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, said: “We want to impress the delegates so that when they come to Uganda, they should not have that bad perception that in Africa, you cannot get excellent services.”

The airport has been undergoing multiple renovations and innovations including installation of the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras, enlarging the new terminal to be twice the capacity of the old one at 20,000 square metres and increasing the cargo centre to a capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes. There is also the construction of a VVIP parking area, and establishment of a new search area.

In preparation for the summits, Mr Luggya said, they on December 17, conducted a dry run at the airport, simulating the arrival and departure processes, as they prepared for the two summits.

“We looked at a number of things. For example, when the VVIP arrive, for those that will use commercial aircraft, we looked at the time it will take us from their disembarkation to moving them to the VVIP facility,” he said.
He added: “We also looked at the time it will take for the handling agencies to pick their baggage and the time it will take for the movement from the airport to Munyonyo and all this enabled all the different stakeholders involved in this process, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and security agencies, to prepare themselves.”

During the UCAA’s stakeholder meeting in Kampala on December 4, the UCAA executive director, Mr Fred Bamwesigye, said they are ready to accommodate 70 aircraft, should each of the expected head of state come with theirs, depending on the type.

“There are various types of aircraft but we have planned for the average, like the size of the presidential gulf strip. We might get triple sevens and Airbuses but we are taking an average. We expect both small and big and that is why we have planned for the average size,” he said.

He added: “Our usual average has been between 50 and 60 aircraft that could usually park for a long time but we have now upgraded. And all this will not interrupt the normal operations because passengers will keep moving. We are ready to handle all of them, special teams have been organised to receive, specifically, NAM visitors.”