Chileka International Airport is an international airport in

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...

. It is located approximately , by road, northwest of

Blantyre Blantyre () is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with an enumerated 800,264 inhabitants . It is sometimes referred to as the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, L ...

, the second largest city in the Republic of Malawi and the country's commercial and financial capital. Chileka is Malawi's second international airport, the other being

Kamuzu International Airport Kamuzu International Airport is an international airport serving Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. It is also known as Lilongwe International Airport. History The airport was built in 1977 by the Nello L. Teer Company, taking over mo ...

, in Lilongwe, the nation's capital city.

Facilities

The airport's geographical coordinates are:15°40'52.0"S, 34°58'18.0"E (Latitude:-15.681111; Longitude:34.971667). The airport is at an elevation of above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. The airport has two

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

paved

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

s: 10/28 measures and 15/33 measures .

Renovations

In April 2019 scheduled renovations and extensions to the main runway were commenced, resulting in the temporary closure of runway 10/28. The renovations were initially scheduled to last for three months, with operations expected to resume in July 2019. However, several delays caused the project to take longer than anticipated, and the reopening date was pushed back at least three times. In July 2019 South African Airlines, one of the 2 major carriers serving the airport along with Ethiopian Airlines, decided to halt all operations to the airport citing several major safety concerns including the state of the runway and emergency services. This negative international attention caused significant embarrassment for local authorities and they finally began renovations in earnest. The airport continued to be operational during this time, handling arrivals and departures of smaller aircraft on runway 15/33. During the closure, all arrivals and departures on medium range and larger aircraft operated from

, with onward transfers to and from Chileka International Airport, on smaller aircraft. The renovation works were finally completed in December 2019, and normal operations with both runways were resumed on 1 January 2020.

Airlines and destinations

References

External links

Closure of Chileka Airport – Blantyre
As of 18 Marc 2014. * * * {{Authority control Airports in Malawi Buildings and structures in Blantyre Buildings and structures in Southern Region, Malawi