Kenya Airports Authority have just announced the commencement of construction work on a new temporary International Arrivals Terminal (Terminal 1E) at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), Kenya’s flagship airport.

This means that parking 7 and 8 will now be closed starting November 10th 2014 to pave way for this construction project. In this regard parking 5, 6 and 10 will be reserved for commercial parking. Parking 11 will be used by airport staff while parking 9 will still remain for the taxis.

The construction of Terminal 1E will have some implications on how people approach and use the airport. For starters, drivers will now have to arrive at the airport about 2 hours before the stipulated arrival times before departure to minimise the congestion that is expected.

This means if you need to be 2 hours earlier for your international flight, you will now need to add an additional 2 hours for traffic delays.

For those who prefer to drive themselves to the airport and park their vehicles at the facilities until they get back, they will now have to use a taxi because there may not be extra space for their personal vehicles at the airport.

Once complete, Terminal 1E will replace the current International Arrivals located at the parking garage. This will free the parking garage to be used to provide some 1,500 additional parking spaces within the airport.

JKIA currently handles 6 million passengers annually and plans to increase this number to 9 million by the end of 2014 once the expansion work is complete. The new terminal will be the latest in a series of new facilities that are planned to boost JKIA’s capacity.

This includes Terminal 2 with a capacity of 2.5 million passengers annually and Terminal 1A which will be dedicated to the exclusive use of a national carrier, Kenya Airways and its partners.  Terminal 3 has also been receiving some facelifts.