Ethiopia Airlines to 'start work on $5bn airport'

Ethiopian Airlines has announced it will start building a new $5bn (£3.8bn) airport in six months at a town located outside the capital, Addis Ababa.

Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam was quoted by state-run Ethiopian News Agency as saying that the carrier has exceeded the capacity of its current base at Bole international airport.

The new airport will cover an area of 35 sq km (13.5 sq miles) in Bishoftu town, located 39km south-east of Addis Ababa.

It will have the capacity to handle 100 million passengers a year, Mr Tewolde was quoted as saying.

Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa has a passenger capacity of about 19 million passengers annually, the Reuters news agency reports.

The Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation has posted a video of Mr Tewolde saying the new airport will be bigger in terms of size than France’s Charles de Gaulle Airport.