Airport queues shorter

Additional immigration officers have been deployed at Hosea Kutako International Airport as a short-term measure to ease delays caused by new software.

The works and transport minister, Alpheus !Naruseb, said in parliament last week that short-term interventions had been made to address the congestion at the airport.

According to him, queuing barriers will be delivered in the next three weeks.

He said additional departure and arrival booths had been installed.

“Additionally, five immigration officers were deployed at Hosea Kutako and two more immigration officers will be deployed by Monday [yesterday],” he said on Friday.

According to the minister, these interventions improved the speed of processing passengers.

!Naruseb said Namibia had experienced a recent influx of airlines such as Qatar Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airline, Eurowings and Ethiopian Airlines.

These were in addition to existing airlines such as TAAG Angolan Airlines, South African Airways, South African Airlink, British Comair, Condor Airline and Air Namibia.

In addition, various bilateral air service agreements were signed with Turkey, Kenya and the United Emirates which would result in additional international flights to Windhoek.

“The Namibia Airports Company (NAC) and the government as the shareholder identified infrastructural limitations as a hindrance to fast and efficient service to the airlines' operations at the international airport,” !Naruseb further explained.

According to the minister, upon identification of the infrastructure challenges, the government appointed a high-level committee of ministers in November last year to assist in addressing the situation at Hosea Kutako.

The committee consisted of the ministers of works, home affairs, safety and security, environment and tourism and health.



!Naruseb said the findings of this committee culminated in a recommendation to establish an Aviation Infrastructure Committee to devise short-, medium- and long-term measures to address the infrastructural challenges at the airport.



The recommendations were implemented and the Aviation Infrastructure Committee was operational, he said. Its recommendations would be implemented after consideration by the NAC board and his ministry, said !Naruseb.



“The government and the NAC are mindful of the challenges and are also fully appreciative of the fact that the situation will not be resolved overnight. It should be noted that aviation infrastructural development requires a lengthy processes by its very nature,” he said.



!Naruseb said such development must be undertaken in compliance with international standards and recommended practices of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).



These include other ICAO statutes and international instruments which are locally enforced and administered by the Namibia Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).



According to !Naruseb, long-term solutions are being explored to address the necessary airport upgrades.



He said the upgraded airport would be able to accommodate more wide-body aircraft and process more passengers.



Recently, passengers have complained about standing in long lines for two or three hours to be scanned before they can get through customs at the check-in points.



This followed the introduction of the new e-Border biometrics system introduced at the airport.



As a short-term measure to mitigate the crisis, five more cubicles were installed at the arrival and three at departure points to speed up the scanning process.



Reports on social media by passengers indicate that these measures are working and the long queues have been reduced.







Petition







Meanwhile, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) has started an online petition to reopen the old terminal building at the international airport.



The petition was started yesterday morning and within five hours it had 176 signatures.



The association says it is concerned about the effect of the bottlenecks created by the current terminal building, which it said were a source of frustration for the public.



According to the AOPA there is little hope that this problem would be resolved by building new facilities.



“The cost of converting the current old terminal building into a small portion for VIP movements and the balance for accommodating the recent international airlines, who are now visiting, would be minimal if compared to a new facility,” the petition reads.

ELLANIE SMIT