Rain forces Kumasi Airport closure

Unanticipated heavy rainfall in the Ashanti regional capital of Kumasi is hampering on-going rehabilitating works on the Kumasi Airport runway.

Heavy rainfall, according to the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) sources, affected a section of on-going works -- making it dangerous to allow incoming traffic on Wednesday morning.

This caused a delay in opening the airport until such time the contractor had contained the damage caused by the rain.

This however caused scheduled flights from Accra to Kumasi to be cancelled or delayed, much to the chagrin of passengers.

Domestic operators were unhappy about the development, citing what it called “unannounced closure”.

In a statement signed by Eric James Antwi, the Chief Executive Officer/Accountable Manager Starbow on behalf of all three operators, said: “Domestic Airline Operators would like to register its utter displeasure at the unannounced morning closure of the Kumasi Airport, which started on Friday 17th October, 2014 up till today (Thursday).

“As stakeholders, we deserve some respect and notification before such a move is initiated by your outfit. As you are aware, the effect of these unannounced closures has caused our operations great harm. Since we were not informed about these closures, we were unable to inform our passengers. This has caused a lot of inconvenience to our passengers, especially some who are connecting flights from Accra, Ghana.”

Heavy rainfall recorded over the last couple of days, according to the GACL, is hampering efforts to completely resurface the 1981-metre runway by the end of November.

The GACL engaged a contractor to gradually resurface the Kumasi runway after serious defects were detected on it late last year.

The defects, it will be recalled, forced the airport’s closure to traffic for a few days to enable authorities remedy the situation.

Under the current arrangement, the Kumasi airport is closed at 6pm to traffic to allow for renovation works up until about 5am the following day. There has been a steady rise in domestic passenger throughput over the past few years. Domestic passenger throughput during the 2013 financial year grew by 43.3 percent to 780,000 in 2013 from 540,000 in 2012.

Phase-one of the Kumasi runway rehabilitation project involved construction of a regulating course. The second phase involved an additional layer on the runway – a binding and wearing course -- and installation of runway lights to allow night operations.

All work is expected to be completed in December 2014.