Here's a previous post on this new airport. I thought there might be some interest on the subject and just give you guys a bit of an update on how things are coming along.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=12710470&postcount=61

Latest news indicates that construction has stopped.

The king was more interested in why no road building and other "infrastructure development" were taking place - primarily referring to the stalled work on Sikhuphe airport and the highway that is supposed to serve it. The king responded furiously when it was clear that the government had nothing to report.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201106120053.html

The project was initially set to be completed by June 2010. It was part of the millennium goals which took 1billion dollars from the coffers to pay for infrastructural programmes like new stadiums, roads and air ports. The timing for the airport was also intended to coincide with the 2010 world cup but unfortunately it was too late and so Swaziland missed a major tourism opportunity. That wasn't the only reason they failed to capitalise on the WC but for such a big investment, it sure didn't pay off. It is supposed to replace the current air port situated between Manzini and Mbabane. Mataspha air port which so far is only able to accommodate small regional carriers. Here's a good summary of the air port with key info I just don't have time to add unfortunately. Sorry
http://www.airport-technology.com/projects/sikhuphe-internation/

Anyway get ready guys, as according to the government, this is going to allow SD to become the next Singapore or Dubai.

mmmm....singapore or Dubai....?? sadly me thinks not. What is the attraction for anyone to fly into Swaziland directly with its tiny population and now current economic issues when SA is right next door?

mmmm....singapore or Dubai....?? sadly me thinks not. What is the attraction for anyone to fly into Swaziland directly with its tiny population and now current economic issues when SA is right next door?

Sorry I forgot to add a lol smile at the end. I agree big joke. Very hard to get attention and therefore investment. Plus Singapour and Dubai were revolutionary in their thinking and had access to the sea and a few other individual things going for them that Swaziland can never have.

i heard it was so Kingy could buy a bigger jet... :)

i heard it was so Kingy could buy a bigger jet... :)
Lol, nah, that would be waste of public funds. He is a well respected leader when it comes to money :lol:

Singapore and Dubai become what they are because of their positions in the world. You can reach almost any place on earth from those positions with the right aircraft. And they are perfect for connecting flights.

The next 'Singapore or Dubai' will be Istanbul.

/yes I know you were joking :lol:

is Swaziland dreaming??


School trips may soon be by plane
By MUSA SIMELANE on March 08,2012

MBABANE – The Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) is doing a study that will revolutionise school trips to Durban, Cape Town and other parts of Southern Africa.

The authority wants pupils to fly to such places at low cost instead of spending hours on the road by bus.

Solomon Dube, Director General for SWACAA, in an interview said the study had been going on for more than a month and it is not only pupils who are targeted, but teachers, small businesspeople and so on.

"We want Swazis not to look at air-travel as something that is very distant to them.

"We simply want them to fly as it is another mode of transport available.

"So we are conducting studies to gauge its feasibility.

"We have roped in economists into the study," said Dube.

He said the old generation of Swazis never boarded a plane until they started working, but the Authority plans to change that. The younger generation must experience flying from a young age.

Meanwhile, the director general also revealed that SWACAA had also signed agreements with Emirates Airlines from Dubai, Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airways and Qatar Airways.

There are plans to also bring the South African Airways on board.

"Even though agreements have been signed, the foreign airlines want to know why they should operate in the kingdom and what can make visitors stay for about five days in the country.

"They want traffic, that is, people who will use their airlines.

"This is a question which the Tourism Industry and the nation must answer," said Dube.

He said Sikhuphe International Airport’s location had its own advantages such as close proxi-mity to local nature reserves, Mozambique, Richard’s Bay and Kruger National Park in South Africa.

He said Sikhuphe International Airport’s location had its own advantages such as close proxi-mity to local nature reserves, Mozambique, Richard’s Bay and Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Yeah.... thats why people fly into Durban or Nelspruit!
Swazi's, invest in your people, not in pipe-dreams :ohno:

^^ Yes, so freekin' advantageous. Only 2hrs from Richards Bay... wait... oh crap, they have a domestic airport already! Wait, only 2hrs from Kruger and Nelspruit... wait... shit... they have MQP! Wait, only 4hrs from Durban, we can be an international hub... oh... f*ck, King Shaka was just built and already struggles with ACSA and OR Tambo's dominance...

Ok, oh well, maybe we should give the Swazi people cake to eat if they have no bread then. :ohno:

see this one remains delayed... ever found any renders?

ok so here some renders...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kBncTxHU_4Q/UKgbhMwAl6I/AAAAAAAABBo/yxrSRPJ5rW8/s1600/swaziland_01.png

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZrMzNLUcNic/UKgbnUI6s-I/AAAAAAAABBw/fDfCkX6W1C0/s1600/swazilandterminal.bmp

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/----ScvMv8K8/UKgbfqdfz2I/AAAAAAAABBg/cmL8e27HzK4/s1600/Swaziland-airport2.jpg

Source:http://www.theafricanaviationtribune.com

Sunday, November 18, 2012

A look at the controversial Sikhuphe International Airport due to open in 2013.

Swaziland's controversial multi-million dollar Sikhuphe International Airport is set to start operations early next year (2013) according to Principal Secretary in the Swazi Ministry of Economic Planning and Development Bertram Stewart.

Mr Stewart was responding to questions from ambassadors from Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Yemen and Iran who were recently taken on a tour to the still under-construction international airport.

Critics of the project, however, remain sceptical of this new inauguration date given that the same claim has been made three times in the past: In October 2010, Stewart said the airport would be open by the end of that year, but to no avail. Then in February 2011, Mr Stewart told local media that Sikhuphe would be completed by June 2011, again to no avail. Then, in April 2011, the Principal Secretary returned again to claim the airport would be open by December 2011....


Background & Controversy

Since its onset, the project has been mired in controversy with various Swazi pressure groups stating it to be "a vanity project" and "wasteful". In 2003, the International Monetary Fund condemned the airport as "a threat to budgetary resources for meeting the country's urgent social needs." To put it into context, Swaziland's life expectancy fell from 61 years in 2000, to 32 years in 2009 as a direct consequence of the country's ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic, showing a grave lack of priorities.

Conceived as part of Swaziland's investor-financed "Millennium Project", which set out to "establish a number of tourism and infrastructure development projects that would help promote faster economic growth and create a large number of new jobs" in the tiny southern African kingdom, Sikhuphe International Airport came with a USD150million price tag and was intended to be a replacement for its current lone international airport, Manzini's Matsapha Airport.

Sikhuphe's primary selling point was to have been as a competitive alternative to Durban's then Virginia Airport and Johannesburg's OR Tambo International. However, the recent construction of Durban's new King Shaka International Airport, Maputo International Airport's recently completed renovation and the completion of Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport, has rendered this point somewhat moot. In addition, with the smaller Matsapha Airport currently only seeing a handful of flights a day, all to one destination - Johannesburg - the Swazi government is going to have its work cut out for it in terms of turning this potential white elephant into a cash cow.

In recent years, Sikhuphe has been aggressively marketed to various Middle Eastern carriers as a potential hub, but with no concrete commitments as yet.

Overview

Situated 40 km east of Manzini, construction of the bulk of airport services, including the CAT 1 runway, started in September 2003, while the design of the terminal building was completed in 2004/2005. The airport should have been operational by 2007, before being pushed back to 2010, before being delayed indefinitely with "financial difficulties" being blamed.

The new airport will comprise of a lone CAT 1 runway together with turning circles, a taxiway apron, a passenger and cargo terminal building, an ATC tower, a fire station, a fuel farm, access roads, security fencing and others.

The first phase of the new Sikhupe International Airport project – en-tailing the construction of a 3,2-km runway, excluding a 400-m extension in the future – started in September 2004.

The runway is 60m wide, including a 7,5m-wide shoulder on both sides, and has a convex slope running down its entire length, with both ends at 331 300 m above sea level and the middle measuring at 331 300 m.

According to the Swazi Civil Aviation Authority, SWACAA, the second phase - the passenger terminal started in 2005 - was structurally complete in July, 2010 and covers approximately 8'000m² and is designed to handle and process about 300 passengers in a given busy hour.

The terminal has been designed according to IATA class C (business class) passenger accommodation and is a three story building. The ground floor level handles passenger arrival and check-in departure areas, while the first floor level houses airport administration and management offices and the second floor level maintains the departure lounge areas as well as Duty Free shops, VIP lounges, etc.

Terminal and Cargo Buildings are virtually complete save for the completion of some interior fittings and outside landscaping works. All the major hardware components of the IT systems for the Terminal Building which include the baggage handling system, ticketing, flight information, security and customs have been installed.

Air Traffic Systems & Navigational Aids have all been installed and are ready for operation.

Fuel farm tanks with a capacity of 1.2million litres have been installed, tested and are ready for use. SWACAA intends outsourcing the function to a private specialised contractor.

Specifications:
Passenger Terminal Specs:
Passenger Terminal size: 7'000m²
Passenger Handling Capacity: 300/hour (240'000 per annum)
Car Park Space: 200 spaces

Cargo Terminal Specs:
Cargo Terminal Size: 1'000m² facility
Cargo Handling Capacity: 5'000t of cargo per annum.

Royal Terminal Specs:
-Undisclosed

Runway 02/20 Specs. (Completed July 2005)
Category: I runway 02/20
Length: 3'580m
Width: 60m.

It can accommodate Code E aircraft i.e. B777-300, B747-400 or A340-600

Apron Specs:
Apron area: 332x260m (86'320m²)

The design is based on handling/parking 2 Code E aircraft (Boeing 747, Boeing 777 and Airbus 340) and 3 Code C aircraft (Jetstream41s).

Source [SWACAA]

Architects & Contractors:
Feasibility Study: Arab Contractors, Egypt
Runway Construction review & alignment: BKS Global
Design and Construction Supervision: CECI, Taiwan
Main contractors: Inyatsi Construction, Swaziland; Stefanutti & Bressan Construction, South Africa; Roots Civils, South Africa.

Financing:
As mentioned above, funding for the USD150million airport was to come from a donor financed "Millennium Fund". In the end, funding ultimately came from the Government of Swaziland with the Taiwanese government also contributing USD22million.

Some of the estimated completion dates and known costs as supplied by Swazi contractor Inyasti:
Runway: July 2005 - USD11.7million (SZL104m)
Service Roads: April 2007 - USD2.2million (SZL19.5m)
66/11kV substation: October 2009 - USD0.36million (SZL3.2m)
ATC & Rescue Station: June 2012 - USD5.64million (SZL50m)
Passenger Terminal: December 31 2011 - USD39.5million (SZL350m)
Royal Terminal: December 31 2011 - USD19million (SZL170m)
Apron roads, infrastructure: December 31 2011 - USD66.67million (SZL591m)
Source [inyasti]

A USD1million feasibility study was awarded to the Egypt's Arab Consulting Engineers. The consultants had to develop a detailed implementation and funding model for the proposed airport.

http://www.theafricanaviationtribune.com/2012/11/swaziland-pics-look-at-controversial.html#more

Current Construction Images

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uS5tyJCN_sU/UKgdwNR8FCI/AAAAAAAABCI/9jP-m62YlYs/s1600/800IMG_0780.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kymv_wEi4YE/UKgd0fUV8cI/AAAAAAAABCQ/le3in2CLQaA/s1600/DSC_5821.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NY868_mW9RE/UKgd5h-fA_I/AAAAAAAABCY/EAzENZUZ7Q0/s1600/DSC_5827.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qs4Bi1ptboQ/UKgefE9xApI/AAAAAAAABCw/hF2iBuDECyk/s1600/3.gif

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q6ldPZwkbnY/UKgef6P2bZI/AAAAAAAABC4/HsgrE_ZBp8Q/s1600/DSC_0240+Sikhuphe+airport.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GWP4OVWRGNU/UKgdus2hHwI/AAAAAAAABB8/mMy-Mzz2UJA/s1600/71833393.jpg

Source: http://www.theafricanaviationtribune.com/2012/11/swaziland-pics-look-at-controversial.html#more

What a catastophic waste of time, space, and ultimately , much needed money!
If it comes to a pouplar revolt agains Mswati, Cosatu would back then people, but would Zuma sending in troops to back him Mswati given the Monarchical ties and mutual respect that the Zulu heirarchy have toward him and his family? Recipe for further scism within the ANC me thinks! Right now he's just throwing our money at the situation hoping it will go away lol