Ondangwa runway back in action

The Namibia Airports Company announced that the rehabilitated runway at Ondangwa Airport was officially commissioned over the previous weekend. Flight operations at the airport commenced with the landing of Air Namibia’s flight SW 105 at 17:00 on Saturday 30 January.
The runway, constructed at a cost of N$208 million, was temporarily closed for a period of six weeks from 20 December 2015 to 29 January 2016. This period marked Phase 1B of the overall airport upgrade and runway improvement.
The first phase of the runway rehabilitation project commenced on 16 March 2015 and was only expected to be completed by the middle of this year. The Ondangwa Airport runway can now be upgraded from Category 3C to Category 4C according to the international IATA classification.
This means that bigger aircraft such as the Airbus A319 will be able to land there. The new runway has been widened to 45 meters and is 2.987 kilometres in length.
The Airports Company said the refurbished runway will greatly compliment the renewed fuel facilities and new Ondangwa Airport terminal, which officially opened its doors on 21 August last year.
NAC Chief Executive Officer, Mr Tamer El-Kallawi, expressed his delight, saying: “We are extremely pleased with this latest development at Ondangwa Airport as we managed to complete the construction within the anticipated period. As previously stated, this brings us a step closer to the attainment of our second strategic priority area of the NAC Strategic Plan which focusses on rehabilitation and upgrade of airport infrastructure. This in turn will lead to the achievement of the NAC’s long term objective of positioning Namibia as a key aviation connection hub.”