Nacala Airport
| Aeroporto de Nacala | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
|||
| Characteristics | |||
| ICAO code | FQNC | ||
| IATA code | MNC | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Height above MSL | 125 m (410 ft ) | ||
| Basic data | |||
| opening | 2014 | ||
| operator | Aeroportos de Moçambique | ||
| surface | 3 ha | ||
| Terminals | 1 | ||
| Capacity ( PAX per year) |
500,000 passengers | ||
| Start-and runway | |||
| 02/20 | 2500 m × 45 m asphalt | ||
The Nacala Airport ( IATA code : MNC , ICAO code : FQNC , port. Aeroporto de Nacala ) is an airport near the city of Nacala in Nampula Province in Mozambique . The original small airfield was completely rebuilt between 2011 and 2014 by the construction company of the Odebrecht Group as part of a bilateral cooperation between the Brazilian and Mozambican governments . The airport is still hardly used today and is considered a “ white elephant ”. In addition, bribes are said to have flowed from Odebrecht to the Mozambican government in the course of the award .
history
Portuguese Air Force airfield
At the beginning of the 1960s, the Portuguese Air Force built a small airfield near the port city of Nacala, it was named "Aeródromo-Base N.º 5 (AB5)". The air force mainly used the airfield for military movements in the course of the colonial and independence war in Mozambique between 1962 and 1975 . The airfield had two smaller hangars, as well as one with a tower and a small barracks. After Mozambique's independence in 1975, the airfield was no longer used.
Planning and expansion
In the course of the resource boom in coal and natural gas that has occurred since 2010, numerous large construction projects have been and are being planned in northern Mozambique. Nacala, located in the Nacala corridor of the same name , serves as a port for the coal transported from Moatize by rail (see Nacala Railway ). The latter is mined by the Brazilian mining company Vale , among others . In the course of this, the Mozambican government expected an upswing for the city of Nacala and the entire region. In order to take this into account and to improve the connection to the port city, the Mozambican government was looking for donors to build a new airport. According to another account, the Brazilian company Odebrecht offered the government the construction and recommended financing through the Brazilian development bank BNDES .
The Mozambican government followed suit and signed a financing contract with the development bank BNDES. This provided a loan to the value of 125 million US dollars (over 15 years), the rest of the sum, a good 91 million US dollars, was financed by the Mozambican state through loans from the Standard Bank and state guarantees. The loans were raised through the state-owned Aeroportos de Moçambique . The construction contract was awarded directly to the construction company Construtora Norberto Odebrecht (or Odebrecht Infra-estrutura - África, Emirados Árabes e Portugal ) of the Odebrecht Group. This was the first order to build an airport since Mozambique gained independence in 1975.
Construction work on the airport began in 2011 and was originally scheduled to take 23 months. The total cost of construction was $ 216.5 million. The airport received a passenger terminal with an area of 15,000 square meters, which can handle up to 500,000 passengers a year. The runway was expanded to 2500 meters so that large aircraft could land in Nacala. The small freight terminal should be able to handle up to 5000 tons per year. Up to four aircraft can be handled at the same time. The airport was designed by the Brazilian architecture firm Fernandes Arquitetos Associados, and the executive architect was Willian Tadashi S. Miyagui.
The opening finally took place in December 2014 in the presence of Mozambican President Armando Guebuza .
Future planning
The airport has only had minimal occupancy rates since it opened; it is considered a classic “ white elephant ”. To make matters worse, the airport is only a good 200 kilometers from the largest city in northern Mozambique, Nampula , and its airport . Nampula Airport has daily national and international flights.
In order to increase the utilization of the airport, there are plans to separate it from the state operator Aeroportos de Moçambique and to privatize the airport. Attempts are also to be made to consciously recruit international airlines, among other things a working group of Emirates Airlines is said to have visited the airport. The state is also putting pressure on the LAM to establish international connections from Nacala. It is also considered to ban international flights from Nampula Airport in order to move them to Nacala. In the meantime, the airport was under discussion as the base for the Mozambican subsidiary of Ethiopian Airlines , but these plans were also dropped. The chairman of the state operator Aeroportos de Moçambique, Emanuel Chaves, admitted that the airport will continue to be under very little capacity in the foreseeable future.
Bribe scandal
In the course of the investigation of the major Brazilian scandal Operation Lava Jato , the company Odebrecht admitted to the US Department of Justice in various countries, including Mozambique, that between 2011 and 2014 it had paid bribes to members of the government. Between 2011 and 2014, Nacala Airport was the Odebrecht Group's only construction project there. A total of 900,000 US dollars are said to have been paid. The General Prosecutor's Office of Mozambique has started the investigation.
Due to the economic crisis in Mozambique, the Mozambican state is no longer in a position to service the loan installments.
business
In terms of facilities and possible capacity, Nacala Airport is now the second largest airport in the country after the capital's airport in Maputo. Originally, at the opening, the Mozambican flag carrier Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) flew to Nacala five times a week from Maputo. In the meantime, the flights have been reduced to two per week due to a lack of capacity. This makes Nacala Airport the airport with the fewest regular weekly flights in the entire country.
Small planes from the mining company Vale also fly to the airport. A good 20,000 passengers are currently expected to use the airport per year, which corresponds to an occupancy rate of four percent.
| Airline | Destinations |
|---|---|
 Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique
|
Maputo (twice a week) |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Adérito Caldeira: Dois anos após inauguração Aeroporto de Nacala é to “elefante branco”. In: A Verdade. December 13, 2016, accessed December 6, 2017 (Portuguese).
- ↑ a b c d e Amanda Rossi: O aeroporto fantasma feito pela Odebrecht em Moçambique, que o BNDES financiou e tomou calote. In: BBC Brasil. November 27, 2017. Retrieved December 6, 2017 (Portuguese).
- ↑ Nacala Airport, in Mozambique, starts receiving international traffic in March 2016 . In: Macauhub . November 24, 2015 ( com.mo [accessed December 13, 2017]).
- ^ Alison Futuro: International Airport of Nacala / Fernandes Arquitetos. In: Arch Daily. October 4, 2012, accessed December 13, 2017 .
- ↑ International Airport of Nacala by Fernandes Arquitetos Associados. In: Descroll. October 12, 2015, accessed December 14, 2017 .
- ^ Nacala Airport, Mozambique, handed over to private management . In: Macauhub . June 1, 2016 ( com.mo [accessed December 13, 2017]).
- ^ Mozambique: Government Wants to Make Nacala Airport Profitable . In: Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo) . December 5, 2017 ( allafrica.com [accessed December 13, 2017]).
- ^ In it for the long haul: Antonio Pinto, LAM Mozambique | Airlines International. Retrieved December 13, 2017 .
- ^ Mozambique: Ethiopian Airlines Drops Plan to Use Nacala. In: AllAfrica.com. December 3, 2018, accessed December 6, 2018 .
- ↑ Mozambican Government is Still Looking for Partners for Nacala International Airport - ThirdWay Africa . In: ThirdWay Africa . December 4, 2017 ( thirdwayafrica.com [accessed December 13, 2017]).