{"id":30001,"date":"2022-04-23T16:07:16","date_gmt":"2022-04-23T16:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport"},"modified":"2022-04-23T16:19:09","modified_gmt":"2022-04-23T16:19:09","slug":"how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport","title":{"rendered":"How flight disruptions put the\u00a0skids under Entebbe Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. <\/strong><\/span>Ms Loyce Nanyonjo, 28, was plagued with jitters widely shared by first time flyers as she planned her commute to Entebbe International Airport on Wednesday this past week.<\/p>\n

Unbeknown to her, a plane had hours earlier skidded off runway 17\/35 at Uganda\u2019s solitary international airport. The episode culminated in, as it so often does, several flight cancellations and delays.<\/p>\n

Ms Nanyonjo, who was destined for Canada for pleasure \u2014\u201cto see my aunt\u201d\u2014and not business, said it was hard not to feel powerless and despairing in the face of disruptions to her plans. The airline she booked a flight with approached her with a coupon for supper after a punishing six-hour wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt disappointed since it was my first time and I kept feeling a surge of anxiety,\u201d she told Saturday Monitor on Thursday as the flight information display system started flashing departure\/arrival times; not flight delays\/flight cancellations. \u201cAll said, I am happy. Though my flight was delayed, I was looked after well and I am leaving Entebbe soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

As passengers at Entebbe faced hours of queues for check-in, security and baggage reclaim, not everyone was ready to look past the inconveniences Wednesday\u2019s episode unintentionally willed into existence.<\/p>\n

John Okera, a 37-year-old shipping agent, had booked a flight to the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa. The trip was purely for business. He had hoped to depart Entebbe on Wednesday night and start \u201cclearing my clients\u2019 containers\u201d the next day. Yet Thursday found him still stranded at Entebbe.<\/p>\n

Charles Eyuk, 31, also found himself sputtering along without conclusion on Wednesday. With the fading of afternoon into evening, he reluctantly came to the conclusion that his trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was not going to materialise.<\/p>\n

Just yet, anyway. On Thursday, Mr Eyuk was in a better mood. Certainly good enough to tell Saturday Monitor that he was looking forward to going to the UAE \u201cto work as a supermarket attendant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrested development?<\/b><\/p>\n

The optimism of travellers at Entebbe like Mr Eyuk is nonetheless tempered by recognition of potential pitfalls ahead. While other international airports are entertaining the thought of upgrading their legacy systems, Entebbe has been undergoing an upgrade of an entirely different kind. The antiquated kind. Major refurbishments that include revamping runways, constructing new passenger terminals and a new cargo centre are expected to be completed in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working on building another runway. We hope to complete it when we acquire phase two expansion money so that there is an alternative,\u201d Mr Sooma Ayub, the director of airports and security at Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), revealed.<\/p>\n

Phase one of the $200m (Shs705b) upgrade of the airport courtesy China Communication Construction Company saw runway 17\/35 get a fresh coat of paint in 2020.<\/p>\n

This was at the height of the first coronavirus wave when air connectivity across the world came to a screeching standstill. Yet despite being resurfaced, pilots\u2014some of whom have clocked several flight hours\u2014are reported to have talked about the runway\u2019s poor quality in hushed tones.<\/p>\n

Mr Ayub described such claims as \u201cextremely unfortunate.\u201d He added that there is emphatic proof that runway 17\/35 was given \u201ca new lease to last long.\u201d The runway is, he further offered, \u201cfully compliant in terms of longitudinal and transverse slopes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet this didn\u2019t insulate the airport from grappling with the chain of events that ended up with travellers like Mr Okera having their business trips deferred. UCAA said Mr Okera was not the only one left licking his wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen airlines don\u2019t land here, we lose revenue\u2026other service providers lose as well; it\u2019s not a one-man show,\u201d Mr Fred Bamwesigye, the authority\u2019s director-general said.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, though, talk of a shoddy resurfacing job on runway 17\/35 will only serve to demonstrate\u2014with deadly spectacle\u2014that Uganda got a raw deal by taking out a $325 million (Shs1 trillion) loan from Beijing in 2015. $200 million of the loan from EXIM Bank was ring-fenced for the expansion of the airport.<\/p>\n

A report by the parliamentary Committee of Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) recently said as much. It stopped short of describing the loan agreement as predatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loan terms referenced above were undesirable, unsustainable and a huge constraint to the country\u2026Due diligence was not carried out by the negotiators on the government side,\u201d the report reads in part.<\/p>\n

Complaints about the quality of work will only serve to add salt to injury, leaving Ugandans more jittery than Ms Nanyonjo was ahead of maiden flight.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Uganda<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. Ms Loyce Nanyonjo, 28, was plagued with jitters widely shared by first time flyers as she planned her commute to Entebbe International Airport on Wednesday this past week. Unbeknown to her, a plane had hours earlier skidded off runway 17\/35 at Uganda\u2019s solitary international airport. The episode culminated in, as it so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":30000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-30001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nHow flight disruptions put the\u00a0skids under Entebbe Airport - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ms Loyce Nanyonjo, 28, was plagued with jitters widely shared by first time flyers as she planned her commute to Entebbe ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How flight disruptions put the\u00a0skids under Entebbe Airport\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ms Loyce Nanyonjo, 28, was plagued with jitters widely shared by first time flyers as she planned her commute to Entebbe ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-23T16:07:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-23T16:19:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2022\/04\/postQueueImg_6-626426ea9b897.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"How flight disruptions put the\u00a0skids under Entebbe Airport\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-23T16:07:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-04-23T16:19:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport\"},\"wordCount\":773,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2022\/04\/postQueueImg_6-626426ea9b897.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/how-flight-disruptions-put-the-skids-under-entebbe-airport\",\"name\":\"How flight disruptions put the\u00a0skids under Entebbe Airport - 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