Themed as “Africa’s Lion Rising”, we prepared a special project report on the new gateway airport and the logistics industrial park for Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa. This report was a joint effort with China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).

Selected in a confidential location, the new greenfield airport will be connected with the City of Addis Ababa through an expressway highway as well as a dedicated railway. Given Ethiopia’s average annual 10-12% GDP growth, we calculated current Bole International Airport’s passenger and cargo throughput, considering Ethiopia Airlines’ outstanding performance globally, we recommended the new airport be built to meet the projected 90 million annual passenger throughput and 4.5 million tones annual cargo throughput by the Year 2045.

This calls for a mega-sized airport with at least four runways and a balanced dual-core layout in both passenger and cargo. We also recommended building two dedicated aviation industry parks, one for logistics and light industrial, one for international gateway commerce, R&D, and global HQ campuses. Ethiopia has one of the most favorable strategic locations in Africa, serving Middle East, Europe, and Asia. With more than 45 million active labor forces within the region, this new airport will spur development for a future airport city. Therefore, we recommend setting up duty-free zones and put in place business-friendly policies to help this new airport come into being.