Angola takes flight

Article - September 21, 2011

Luanda is the home to about one-third of Angola’s more than 12 million citizens, making it by far the country’s biggest and most important city.

As such, its airport is equally as important, a fact that the country’s National Company for the Exploration of Airports and Air Navigation, or ENANA, is very much aware of.

For that reason the government financed a $74 million project to rebuild and improve the facility, giving it bigger and more modern arrivals and departures areas, increasing the number of check-in desks to 26 from 12, and installing three new luggage conveyor systems in the arrivals area, among many other things.

Support services for the 4 de Fevereiro Airport such as customs, tax police and the immigration service, were supplied with modern equipment and facilities. The airport also gained three new parking lots, with a capacity for a total of 856 cars, including handicapped parking areas and an automatic control and management system.

“Since peace was achieved, Luanda’s airport has undergone a major modernization effort which we are very proud of,” says Manuel Ferreira de Ceita, ENANA’s general director. “Now we are in a much better position before we go ahead with our plans for the construction of a new airport, farther away from the city.”

The new facilities at 4 de Fevereiro, which increased its passenger-handling capacity to 3.6 million per year, opened in January of last year. In the first half of 2010, more than 2 million passengers passed through the improved airport, compared with about 1.8 million people in the same period a year earlier.

The increasing importance of Angola as a trading partner for the U.S., and growing interest in the country as a business destination, led Delta Airlines to announce last year the start of its first direct flights between its hub at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Luanda. The new thrice-weekly service started in January.

“This new service between Atlanta and Luanda will shave hours off of business travelers’ itineraries between the U.S. and Angola thanks to more direct routings via the world’s largest airline hub in Atlanta,” Delta said when it announced the flights. “Angola, one of Africa’s fastest growing business travel destinations, has seen double-digit growth in annual travelers for the past several years and is expected to grow at similar rates for the foreseeable future.”