Cairo International Airport, Egypt

Cairo International Airport is one of the major airports in Egypt and the primary hub for the national carrier Egypt Air. The airport is located to the north-east of the city around 15km from the business area of the city.

The airport is administered by the Egyptian Holding Co. for Airports and Air Navigation (EHCAAN), which controls four companies including: Cairo Airport Co., Egyptian Airports Co., National Air Navigation Services and Aviation Information Technology and the Cairo Airport Authority (CAA), which is the regulatory body.

Cairo International is the second busiest airport in Africa after Johannesburg International in South Africa. Cairo handled nearly 10.8 million passengers in 2006 and ten million passengers in 2007 and 14.36 million passengers in 2008. The airport has three terminals. The third terminal was inaugurated on 18 December 2008 by President Hosni Mubarak.

There are also four runways and a single cargo terminal (the fourth runway was opened in early 2008). Runway 05R/23L is 3,300m long, 05L/23R has a length of 4,000m and 16/34 is 3,180m (all of the runways are 60m wide). The fourth runway, south of the existing airfield is 4,000m by 65m and suitable for the Airbus A380.

The airport has the potential to be a major hub with its positioning between Africa, the Middle East and Europe (especially with facilities for the A380).

Airport facilities

The airport is adding new facilities and the ongoing projects include an automated people mover (APM), multi-storey car parking, and real estate projects.

The APM, which will be integrated into the airport infrastructure, resembles a cable car system. It is located between the second and third terminals. The track length is 1.8km and connects the first terminal, the air mall, the multi-storey car park, and Terminals 2 and 3. The APM is expected to be operational by 2011. The multi-storey car park is located in the T2 car park area and will be operational by 2011.

A new five-star hotel will also be constructed in front of the new terminal. It will be connected to the new terminal through a 230m-long skyway, which will be equipped with travelators.

Realising the current and future potential growth of the Egyptian air cargo industry, the airport is developing a cargo facility named the Cairo Cargo City (CCC). Hamza & Associates and Lufthansa Consulting are designing the required infrastructure for the CCC, which will be operational from 2011.

Operation

In May 2006 Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA) of Switzerland was awarded a $7m contract to operate Terminals 1 and 2 at the airport. The operating contract for Terminal 3 was awarded to Fraport of Germany.

Terminals 1 and 2

Terminal 1 first came into use in 1963 and can handle 6.5 million passengers a year. Terminal 2 was opened in 1984 and has a capacity of 3.5 million passengers a year.

Terminal 1 has 12 gates and three of these are double-level for large aircraft, all of these make use of bus transfer. Terminal 2 has seven gates with ten passenger boarding bridges. Over this area there are 131 aircraft stands, nine of which are contact stands.

Both the terminal buildings 1 and 2 are equipped with Wi-Fi services, covering the departure and transit areas.

Terminal 3

Terminal 3 (T3) was opened to commercial operations in April 2009, four months after its inauguration. Terminal 3 has 23 gates, of which two gates can be used for AirBus A380s.

T3 was built adjacent to Terminal 2 which had very limited capability for expansion. The two terminals are linked by a bridge and the access roads surrounding the two adjacent structures were refurbished and reconfigured (car parks were also moved).

The new T3 main building has three levels with 164,000m² of floor space. The main building also contains mezzanine levels. The building contains areas for arrivals and departures halls, baggage handling and retail outlets. In addition there are plant areas for the building services.

The terminal has two extendable piers and gates for domestic and international services (contact and remote). The two piers are connected to the main building by concourses. The Airbus A380 can be accepted at two of the gates. The new terminal is served by a new access road linked to the Cairo ring road.

With the opening of the T3, the capacity of the airport has doubled, enabling it to handle increased passenger numbers. The airport now has a capacity of 22 million passengers a year compared to 11 million passengers previously.

The terminal has a total floor area of 211,000m² and cost EGP3.1bn. It has a duty-free shopping complex of about 4,000m² of retail space. Egypt Air Duty Free (EADF) was the concessions contractor for the duty free shops at the T3.

Contractors

In September 2006 ARINC Managed Services was chosen to provide advanced passenger check-in systems and IT technologies for Terminal 3 (a project worth $22m). Systems included: self-service CUSS, ARINC SelfServ, iMUSE common-use passenger system; AirVUE flight information display system (FIDS) and AirDB™ airport operational database.

The T3 project was worth $400m (funding was provided by the World Bank, National Investment Bank of Egypt and Egyptian Government).

ARINC provided the project with design, project management, supply management, installation, and commissioning for around 14 of the most important IT systems including: passenger check-ins and displays, parking systems, biometric gates and ramp control.

The T3 contractor was TAV (Egypt) Airports Holding Company of Turkey. Sagem Sécurité was selected to provide the terminal with new technology biometric border control gates. The new automatic fingerprint recognition system can be used to identify incoming passengers to increase the speed of the immigration process (the first custom biometric immigration gate (BIG) system in Egypt).

Future developments

Plans are in place to extend the Cairo Metro line to the airport. When completed the metro line will connect the airport to Mohandessin in Giza. A new ATC tower is also being planned.