Facelift for Kotoka airport arrival hall
Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) has completed major expansion works at the arrival hall of the country’s premier airport, Kotoka International Airport (KIA), as part of a massive decongestion exercise. The move, which forms part of a grand exercise to position the airport as the hub in the sub-region, is also meant to give passengers more convenience, create a conducive ambiance to meet international standards and help to attract investors into the country.
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The Director, Technical Services at the GACL, Mr MacDavids Torgbor Torto, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic, after a tour of the arrival hall of the KIA on Wednesday. “We have now expanded the arrival hall of the airport to 5,600 square metres and it is now fitted with the state-of-the-art facilities to meet international standards,” he said.
Facilities
The entire area is now fully airconditioned. The washrooms, which were hitherto an eyesore, have been completely transformed while the lighting systems have been changed to make the area brighter.
The arrival area now has four floors, including a dedicated ICT centre meant to help ensure constant and uninterrupted operation of the systems. It also has a transit and transfer lounge, offices for immigration officers and a port health post.
A new addition is the gates where passengers using biometric passports can easily swipe to have their data recorded. In terms of visa-on-arrival, the company has provided a more spacious area for that purpose, all intended to save waiting time.
Waiting time
The Director of Operations, Mr Charles Hanson Adu, said the new arrival hall had been fitted with four new, heavy-duty carrousels (conveyor belts) that would carry the heavy luggage from wide-bodied aircraft. He explained that with the new facilities put in place, the period between disembarkation and time spent on customs and immigration formalities had been drastically reduced. Mr Adu said unlike other international airports where passengers had to walk for more than 45 minutes to get to their luggage, at KIA the distance was shorter in terms of walking to the luggage, hence the longer waiting time. “You see, with the other airports, by the time you walk for that long distance to get to the carrousel to pick your luggage, the various processes would have been completed but in Ghana the situation is different but nothing has changed,” he said. He, therefore, asked passengers to be patient since the waiting time had nothing to do with inefficiency or operational challenges but was due to the unique design.
Santa at KIA
Meanwhile, as part of the Christmas festivities for the year 2015, the Ghana Airports Company Limited introduced an innovation dubbed “Santa Claus at KIA”. The purpose was to create a festive mood for arriving passengers during peak periods - between the hours of 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. - and was targeted at children.
The Santa Claus characters were Terminal Operations Officers of the GACL. The children were presented with gifts such as made-in-Ghana chocolates and branded GACL souvenirs.
