Kenya’s decision to cancel a $1.8 billion deal awarded to the Adani Group for the expansion of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport has not dampened eastern Africa’s appetite for ambitious aviation infrastructure.

Across the region, governments are pressing ahead with multi-billion-dollar airport projects even as national carriers struggle with mounting losses and grounded fleets.

In 2024, President William Ruto said the Kenyan government remained committed to modernising the country’s main airport and exploring alternative funding and delivery models. He now says construction of a completely new airport will begin this year.“This year, we will be building a new world-class airport that will support not just Kenya as a hub in our region, not just our tourism sector, but also our business people who use our airports,” he said at an event two weeks ago.

Details of the greenfield airport plan remain scarce, and critics have previously accused the President of announcing projects that fail to materialise. Aviation experts, however, caution that a new airport may not be the best priority, arguing that Kenya should first stabilise its struggling national carrier, Kenya Airways.“Building a hub airport while the anchor airline is loss-making and strategically unsettled would invert cause and effect, and risk creating an expensive underutilised national asset,” said Dick Omondi, an aviation commentator and former head of marketing at Kenya Airways.

Kabalega airportAcross East Africa, countries are investing heavily in airport upgrades and greenfield projects, each seeking to position itself as the region’s aviation hub.

In Uganda, the expansion of Entebbe International Airport and the construction of Kabalega International Airport in Hoima will together cost nearly $1 billion, largely financed through external debt. Yet Uganda Airlines has accumulated about $300 million in losses, with grounded aircraft straining operations despite government support.

The recently completed Arusha International Airport is now Tanzania’s fourth, with Msalato set to be the fifth. However, its national carrier, Air Tanzania, has struggled financially, with losses rising 64 percent to $34 million in the year to June 2024.

Bugesera airportRwanda’s $2 billion Bugesera International Airport is expected to be the country’s largest and a key regional hub for Qatar Airways, which will hold a 60 percent stake in the airport.

In a December press briefing, Kenya’s aviation and aerospace development Principal Secretary Teresia Mbaika said the government was still seeking a contractor to upgrade the airport through a public-private partnership, describing the project as long overdue.“JKIA was designed to handle just 7.5 million passengers a year. Now it handles over 8 million, which is well above capacity. So there’s no question that we need a bigger airport,” Ms Mbaika told journalists.

Meanwhile, national flag carrier Kenya Airways is barely holding on. It returned to losses in 2025 after a brief profit rebound in 2024, driven by prolonged fleet groundings that cut capacity by 20 percent.

The airline is also heavily indebted and struggling to attract a strategic investor to inject capital needed to stabilise and expand operations.

Bishoftu airportTo analysts, only Bishoftu Airport in Ethiopia—which is set to become Africa’s largest—appears economically justified, given the financial strength of the country’s anchor airline.

”He points to Delta Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, which has made Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport the world’s busiest. “Delta did not inherit Atlanta as the world’s busiest airport; it made it so over the course of decades of disciplined network growth.

”Sean Mendis, former chief operations officer of Africa World Airlines in Ghana, agrees but argues that airlines themselves require functional airports to thrive.“The reality is that neither side can build an [aviation] hub without the cooperation of the other. The airline drives the process while an airport facilitates it,” he said.

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