The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) is introducing a new parking management system ahead of the planned rehabilitation of the JKIA terminals T1B, C and D.
Rehabilitating the terminals will see the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) increase its capacity to handle more than 10 million passengers from the current 7.5 million annually.
The new parking management system is managed by KAPS Limited and is aimed at improving the passenger experience at the airport.
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JKIA, which is the busiest and fastest-growing Airport hub in East and Central Africa, currently handles an average of 8 million passengers annually. Estimates project that the airport will experience an annual traffic growth rate of 12%.
The airport sees more than 20,000 passengers picked and dropped at the facility with over 14,000 vehicular movements.
KAA Acting Managing Director, Alex Gitari, says the new parking management system will introduce efficient, stress-free access, parking and exit experience for motorists visiting the airport.
“The new system introduces a number of innovations such as displaying available parking spaces at the different airport parking zones on entry. We have also eliminated pay points at exit points to ensure smooth exit by motorists from the airport.” He added.
Visitors to the airport can now pay for their parking via mobile money using the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).
Fastest-growing Cargo Airports
This is in addition to the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip system that scans vehicle details to allow swift passage through the airport.
Even as it seeks to increase the number of passengers using the airport, JKIA has been ranked as one of the fastest-growing Cargo Airports in the world.
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Last year, the Airports Council International (ACI) latest World Airport Traffic Report, noted that JKIA was ranked 2nd in the ‘Fastest Growing Airports (Handing over 250,000 metric tonnes of air cargo)’ category, after handling over 342,000 metric tonnes of air cargo in 2018, a 25% growth from the what was reported in the year 2017.
The ACI report highlights top airports for passengers, cargo and aircraft movements and showcases the world’s airports performance.
JKIA has recently witnessed a significant boost in air cargo traffic to and from Europe, Asia, America, and most recently China and Australia.