As African economies grow, major airport projects are taking shape. But are they good investments or expensive national vanity projects? Tony Harrington reports
‘Ambitious’ is a word widely used to describe Abusera International Airport, the centrepiece of a US$7.8 billion ‘aerotropolis’ planned for the lakeside resort town of Bishoftu, a 90-minute drive south-east from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
‘Audacious’ is also an apt descriptor given the vast scale of this yet-to-commence development, and the not-uncommon African practice of announcing grand projects for political posturing rather than productive purpose.
“Vanity aviation projects are not anything new,” says Malawi-based aviation consultant Sean Mendis, with underused and overbuilt airports often cited as proof that white elephants exist in Africa.
But with soaring demand for air transport to, from and within the continent, bold long-term forecasts, and poor ground transport in and between many African nations, Mendis, a former airline executive, says well-considered, well-connected and well-managed airports have never been more important.
Even though its construction has yet to start, and will take at least four years, Abusera is already being hailed as a textbook example of a hub strategically planned to elastically accommodate Africa’s aviation growth.
It is being designed not as a stand-alone piece of infrastructure but as a critical, interlocked element and key enabler of Ethiopia’s 2035 Economic Vision, a broad-based plan reliant on the sum of many parts rather than single ‘wow factor’ initiatives.
A ‘global gateway’
Beyond its nation-building credentials, the project is considered by the powerful African Development Bank (ADB) as an integral driver of cohesion and connectivity for the entire continent.
The ADB has signed a letter of intent to help finance Abusera which, as well as being developed by the state-owned Ethiopian Airlines Group to align the operations of the national carrier and the country’s existing key airports, is also on course to become Africa’s biggest air transport gateway.
Currently, that title is comfortably held by Cairo International Airport – which has an annual capacity of 28 million passengers, projected to reach 30 million by 2028, then rapidly double to 60 million by 2030 when its new Terminal 4 is due for completion.
Stage 1 of Abusera International Airport is scheduled to open in 2029 with two parallel runways and initial capacity for 60 million passenger journeys per year, more than double that of Addis Ababa’s current and recently upgraded Bole International Airport, which, while still fully functional, is fast approaching its annual limit of 25 million passengers.
Although no timeframes have been announced, plans have already been flagged to progressively enlarge the new airport to a four-runway hub with 270 aircraft parking bays, and capacity for up to 110 million passengers per year.
To help illustrate the scale, that’s around 2 million more passengers per year than today’s busiest global hub, Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, which last year handled just over 108 million flyers.
That is still well short of the volumes planned for other emerging or expanding mega gateways, none bigger than Dubai’s colossal new Al Maktoum International Airport (also known as Dubai World Central), a 40-year project with five runways, 400 aircraft gates, and targeting 260 million passengers per year, (up to 150 million in the first 10-year stage).
Growth projections and a rising middle class
But Abusera is still tipped to become one of the busiest and most important airports in the world because Africa, while not and never likely to be the biggest air transport bloc, is still the fastest growing, fuelled by continuous expansion of its collective middle classes, incremental connectivity increases between its constituent nations, and expanding airline operations enabled by new widebody and narrowbody jets offering ever-better range, payload and opportunities.
“The new airport at Abusera will be a global gateway for Africa and place Ethiopia at the very heart of the continent’s transportation networks,” says Cristiano Ceccato, director of aviation for Zaha Hadid Architects, one of the key partners in the project.
“If you die in Africa and go to heaven, the chances are you’ll connect in Addis Ababa,” adds Sean Mendis.
“Africa is undergoing a once-in-a-generation overhaul of its airport infrastructure,” says Linus Bauer, founder and principal of Dubai-based aviation consultancy BAA & Partners.
“Driven by a mix of national development ambitions, strategic geographic positioning and anticipated aviation demand growth, a wave of airport developments – both greenfield and large-scale expansions – are reshaping the continent’s connectivity,” Bauer adds.
Still, to extract the most value from aviation, there needs to be political appreciation of its economic and social value, says Barry Kashambo, executive chairman of Kigali-based Africa Air Transport Solutions Associates (AATSA), an independent organisation focused on advancing air transport in Africa.
“Political will, government support and even commitment to give air transport the deserved priority remains uneven, and in most cases low,” he says. “Aviation and air traffic in Africa continue to be the lowest globally at a mere 2% of the total traffic.
“Generally, Africa’s airlines and airport infrastructure are still wanting. While some pockets of excellence exist, such as in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa, the continent as a whole faces significant challenges.
“Some of the airports are designed for capacities below current traffic levels, and others are operating well below the infrastructure capacity. Compounding this is the reality that many African states’ investment and planning for airlines and airport infrastructure are not commensurate with the projected growth in air traffic.”
In a fresh report titled ‘Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics 2025’, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD ) describes “both an urgent challenge and an unparalleled opportunity” for the continent, which is experiencing major and continuing population growth and desperately needs more and stronger infrastructure.
“The rate of urban growth in Africa has been the fastest in the world since at least 1950,” says the report, “and is projected to continue at an average rate of 2.3% per year until 2050.
“From 2020 to 2035, Africa’s urban population will increase by as much as the urban populations in Europe and North America did in the last 50 years (345 million).
“Over the next three decades,” it adds, “Africa will experience an unprecedented increase in its urban population, doubling from 704 million to 1.4 billion people by 2050.
“By then, Africa will have 159 urban agglomerations with over 1 million inhabitants and 17 megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants.”
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects African air traffic to double within 20 years, a period during which Airbus expects the continent’s average flights per capita to increase from 0.3 last year to 0.7 in 2044, up by 130%.
In its latest Global Market Forecast, Airbus says domestic air traffic in African nations has recovered by an average 133% since the pandemic compared to 111% globally, while the continent’s international traffic is up by 108%, equal to the average global rate.
Rival airframer Boeing says African air traffic will grow by an annual average of 6% between 2025 and 2044, and even more as air connectivity increases between African nations.
“Demand for air transport should grow strongly since the industry is still mostly in its infancy in the region,” adds regional jet builder Embraer in its own 20-year assessment of global aviation.
Embraer cites United Nations estimates that more than 40% of Africa’s combined population could be categorised as middle class by 2060. “As incomes rise and more people attain the means to travel,” it says, “Africa holds immense potential for an expanding aviation market.”
In the absence of meaningful progress in the decades-long proposal for the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) to maximise air connectivity between its 54 nations, the focus in Africa is primarily on major hubs to accommodate surging long-haul traffic and selected internal gateways for local and regional needs.
The ‘biggest challenge’
Global aviation data group OAG, in its latest assessment of the air transport industry, says long-haul operations account for 80% of capacity deployed in African markets, and grew by 5.6% in the year to July, compared to just 0.9% domestically.
John Grant, a partner in UK-based consultancy MIDAS Aviation and a former executive vice president of OAG, says Africa’s major hub airports won’t be seriously challenged by others within the continent.
They have reached unassailable scale and continue to grow, often with strong national airlines as key customers, and can exploit strong ‘sixth freedom’ flows of passenger traffic, transiting the African hubs en route between other countries.
“The best prepared by a mile is Addis Ababa,” says Grant, “especially given the government’s vision for the new airport and continuing capacity growth by Ethiopian Airlines, the national carrier and Africa’s biggest airline.
“There will be the regional hubs – Accra, Abidjan, Johannesburg, Casablanca, Cairo and, to a lesser degree, Nairobi,” he adds, but no other gateways of their scale on the continent.
“The biggest challenge for Africa is that it’s a notoriously high-risk investment for anyone, much of the operating costs are in dollars, and the revenues are in wallpaper currencies subject to a devaluation overnight. Would you want to see your pension invested in any African operation?” Grant asks.
Among the biggest investors in African infrastructure, including airports, are foreign governments, most notably China, India and European players, whose support is often paid for with access to other major sectors such as minerals.
Regional opportunities
But key regional airport projects are continuing apace.
Bauer highlights several taking shape across the continent to help absorb the coming growth.
In Rwanda, he says, Bugesera International Airport is being developed near the capital, Kigali, as a pan-Africa hub, initially with capacity for 7 million passengers and plans to double to 14 million, energised by a new partnership between national carrier RwandAir and the giant and widely connected Qatar Airways (which has also just acquired 25% of independent South African operator Airlink).
In Senegal, Dakar’s Blaise Diagne International Airport, opened in 2017 to replace the previous Dakar-Yoff gateway, has initial capacity of 3 million passengers, but is designed to expand to 10 million.
And east of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, another new airport, Lekki-Epe International, is nearing completion, with capacity to handle up to 5 million passengers per year to ease pressure on the city’s current gateway, Murtala Muhammed International Airport.
Elsewhere, works have been, are being or will be undertaken to enhance existing airports, among them the critical southern and eastern gateways of Johannesburg and Nairobi.
But the viability of many projects is questionable, few more strikingly so than the Dr Antonio Agostinho Neta International Airport, 40km from Angola’s capital, Luanda, which has more letters in its name than it has flights on some days.
The largest foreign airport project funded by China, Luanda’s new gateway opened for business late in 2023 after 20 interrupted years of construction, with three terminals, two runways and capacity to accommodate 15 million passengers per year.
Yet it handled only freight in its first 12 months, with limited passenger services finally launched late last year by the national carrier, TAAG, which has gradually increased its operations, mainly to domestic destinations, and is due to relocate fully to the new hub from mid-September.
‘The lost pillar of African aviation’
Also at odds with its aviation potential is Nigeria, which despite a population of 238 million – the largest by far of any African nation – has never managed to establish itself as the natural air transport hub it should logically be.
“Despite Nigeria being one of Africa’s largest economies with abundant human and natural resources, its aviation sector continues to underperform relative to its potential,” says one African aviation executive with intimate knowledge of the market.
“A primary constraint is the persistent governance and regulatory instability, marked by policy inadequacies, weak enforcement mechanisms, bureaucratic inefficiencies and frequent leadership changes within the sector.
“These challenges have been compounded by chronic underinvestment in aviation infrastructure and recurring allegations of corruption, which have significantly eroded investor confidence and increased the cost of doing business.”
“Nigeria is the lost pillar of African aviation,” adds Willy Boulter, an airline veteran broadly experienced with major international carriers in the UK, Asia, UAE and Africa. Two decades ago, as commercial director of Virgin Atlantic Airways, he was closely involved in developing Virgin Nigeria.
“The local market and diaspora could sustain an airline to match at least Kenya Airways, if not Ethiopian in size,” says Boulter, as well as a major hub to accommodate what should be huge flows of domestic and international passengers and freight. “But the political will and consistency to achieve that seems to be missing.”
Open skies?
As a former chief operating officer of Africa World Airlines, Mendis emphasises the critical value of internal air networks not just to connect to and from long-haul international operations, but also to nearer destinations, and the importance of scaling airports to realistically, efficiently and affordably support traffic flows.
Like many, he can attest to the difficulty of travelling within the continent, having on numerous occasions had to fly wildly circuitous routes between African nations, including via Europe, because of the dearth of direct transport channels and the lack of joined-up political thinking to progress open skies.
“The Single African Air Transport Market and its predecessor, the Yamoussoukro Declaration, have been in the implementation stage longer than 70% of the African population have been alive,” says Mendis. “I’m not holding my breath.”
However, he adds, there remains both a strong need and a major opportunity to ensure fit-for-purpose secondary airports to handle flights within and between African destinations, as well as connecting to long-haul hubs.
“Airports can be very successful without necessarily being big international hubs, sometimes serving a local market,” says Mendis, citing Ghana in West Africa as a perfect example, with strong and growing traffic centred on the capital, Accra.
“Ghana has no national airline,” he explains. “It hasn’t had one for 15 years.”
And yet, statistics published by the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), show the nation’s air passenger numbers have soared in that time, doubling from 1.6 million in 2010 to 3.2 million last year.
Domestic traffic is up 550% from 133,000 to 863,000 and international volumes by almost 70% from 1.39 million to 2.35 million, while combined traffic figures reported for Q1 2025 total 787,777, 16% more than the whole of 2000.
But another key contributor to the growth, says Mendis, was the decision of the Ghanaian Government to invest in airport infrastructure rather than a replacement for Ghana International Airlines when it failed in 2010, five years after its predecessor, Ghana Airways.
The government’s strategy was to focus on continued development of air traffic not only to and from the country but also within it, leveraging passenger flows generated by operating airlines, rather than continuing to commit energy and capital into reviving or replacing failed ones.
“Accra has more international airlines than any other airport in West Africa,” observes Mendis, “which is something that probably came about because of the lack of a dominant state-owned airline.
“The absence of a national carrier means that more and more international airlines are coming into the market, knowing that it’s a level playing field, and that there’s not skewed demand driven by a single, government-backed carrier.”
“Africa’s airport mega projects are increasingly bold, technically sound and geopolitically strategic,” says Bauer, “but success will not hinge on infrastructure alone.
“The real inflection point lies in synchronising these assets with robust aviation ecosystems: strong flag carriers, liberalised skies, competitive logistics networks and regionally integrated tourism and trade corridors.
“A new runway can enable growth. But without the airline, policy and economic engine behind it, it risks becoming a monument to potential unrealised.”
