Bole Airport’s Expansion Project to cost an additional $115 million

The project, which was supposed to be completed in two phases, has now joined together the two.

The  expansion project, which was planned at a cost of 225 million dollars, is now costing up to 340 million dollars as the scope of the construction has been stretched.

The construction, which was first planned to be completed in two phases, began with 225 million dollars secured by loan from the Export Import Bank of China (Chinese ExIm Bank), to finance the first phase of the project.

The plan for the first phase of the expansion was to enable the airport to accommodate up to 14 million passengers a year and the expansion construction was designed accordingly. The second phase was planned to raise the capacity from 18 million to 20 million passengers a year.

“The existing airport was constructed in 2003 to accommodate passengers for twenty years but it reached its limit after just 10 years,” Tewodros Dawit, chief executive officer (CEO) of Ethiopian Airports Enterprise (EAE) told Fortune.

After evaluating the demand for the airport facility for the coming 20 years, the first and second phases of construction were integrated so as to enable the construction to accommodate the estimated 20 million to 25 million passengers a year, according to Tewodros.

The Addis Abeba Bole International Airport, which used to accommodate less than a million passengers a year, can now handle over seven million passengers a year, according to Haylay G/Tsadik, deputy CEO of Airport Operations at EAE speaking at the Airport Infrastructure and Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul MRO meetings press conference.

The expansion construction that is now being carried out by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) forced the Enterprise to integrate the two phases instead of embarking on a new expansion project in the near future. The design work of the expansion project was undertaken by a Singapore company, CPG Corporation Pte. Ltd., a building development and management services provider in the Asia Pacific region.

Read more at: Addis Fortune