Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport is an international airport located in

Ndola Ndola is the third largest city in Zambia and third in terms of size and population, with a population of 475,194 (''2010 census provisional''), after the capital, Lusaka, and Kitwe, and the second largest in terms of infrastructure development aft ...

Copperbelt Province Copperbelt Province is a province in Zambia which covers the mineral-rich Copperbelt, and farming and bush areas to the south. It was the backbone of the Northern Rhodesian economy during British colonial rule and fuelled the hopes of the imme ...

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

. It was officially known as Ndola Airport before being renamed in 2011 in honour of

Simon Kapwepwe Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe (April 12, 1922 – January 26, 1980) was a Zambian politician, anti-colonialist and author who served as the second vice-president of Zambia from 1967 to 1970. Early life Simon Kapwepwe was born on 12 April 1922 in the C ...

, the nation's former vice president. It is located adjacent to the

Dag Hammarskjöld Crash Site Memorial The Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Crash Site marks the place of the plane crash in which Dag Hammarskjöld, the second and then-sitting Secretary-General of the United Nations was killed on 17 September 1961, while on a mission to the Léopoldville ...

about west of the city centre. It is accessed by using the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Access Road off the T3 Road (Ndola-Kitwe Dual Carriageway). The original Ndola Airport in Itawa was built to serve the city of Ndola, the administrative capital of the Copperbelt province. However as the relocated Simon Mawnsa Kapwepwe International Airport opened in 2021 it now serves the cities of Kitwe and Ndola in the

Copperbelt The Copperbelt () is a natural region in Central Africa which sits on the border region between northern Zambia and the southern Democratic Republic of Congo. It is known for copper mining. Traditionally, the term ''Copperbelt'' includes the ...

, Zambia's 2nd and 3rd most populous cities. It additionally handles domestic, regional and international flights for both passengers and cargo. In late 2021, the Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport moved its operations to its current location adjacent to the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial from its previous location in Ndola's Itawa suburb. This new airport was engineered by the

Aviation Industry Corporation of China Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot a ...

(AVIC International) at a cost of $397 million. It was expected to be completed in Mid-2020 but was delayed by setbacks due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

History

Before August 2021, the Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport was at an

old location The Old Location (or as it was known then the Main Location) was an area segregated for Black residents of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It was situated in the area between today's suburbs of Hochland Park and Pioneers Park. History Upon the ...

, in the Itawa suburb of Ndola (south-east of the city centre). Ndola's airport in Itawa officially became a civilian airport in the 1950s. Previously, it was known as Ndola Airport and in September 2011, President

Michael Sata Michael Charles Chilufya Sata (6 July 1937 – 28 October 2014) was a Zambian politician who was the fifth president of Zambia, from 23 September 2011 until his death on 28 October 2014. A social democrat, he led the Patriotic Front (PF), a maj ...

decided to rename the airport in honour of

, the nation's former vice-president. On 5 August 2021, Ndola's airport was officially moved from Itawa to a new address, 15 kilometres west of the city centre, just north of the

, which is its current address. The airport's current location was known as the Copperbelt International Airport until construction finished in August 2021, when it was commissioned by President

Edgar Lungu Edgar Chagwa Lungu (born 11 November 1956) is a Zambian politician who served as the sixth president of Zambia from 25 January 2015 to 24 August 2021. Under President Michael Sata, Lungu served as Minister of Justice and Minister of Defence. ...

. At that point, it was renamed Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport, the name of the original airport. The new airport also retained the same

IATA code IATA codes are abbreviations that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) publishes to facilitate air travel. They are typically 1, 2, 3, or 4 character combinations (referred to as unigrams, digrams, trigrams, or tetragrams, respect ...

(NLA). The new airport was engineered by the

(AVIC International) at a cost of $397 million. It was expected to be completed in Mid-2020 but was delayed by setbacks due to the

. On 05 August 2021, President

commissioned the opening of the new airport, although it took about two more months for all operations to complete moving from the old airport to the new airport 15 kilometres west of the city centre. As such, the old airport in the Itawa suburb is no-longer a commercial airport (no-longer named SMK International) and now belongs to the

Zambian Air Force The Zambian Air Force (ZAF) is the air force of Zambia and the air operations element of the Zambian Defence Force. Following the creation of the Republic of Zambia in 1964, the former Northern Rhodesia Air Force was renamed as the Zambian Air ...

. On 30 July 2021, President

gave the old airport location a name, Peter Zuze Air Force Base, named after Zambia's first indigenous air commander. Ndola remains having one commercial airport.

Location

The airport is located adjacent to the

and Ndola Girls Technical Secondary School in the western part of

Ndola District Ndola District is a district of Zambia, located in Copperbelt Province. The capital lies at Ndola. As of the 2000 Zambian Census, the district had a population of 374,757 people. Constituencies Ndola District is divided into four constituencies, ...

. It is reachable, by road, using the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial access road, off the Ndola-Kitwe Dual Carriageway. It is approximately 15 kilometres west of Ndola city centre by road.

Facilities

The airport has a single runway, designated 09/27 and in length.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines have scheduled passenger service at Ndola International airport:

Accidents and incidents

* On 18 September 1961, a UN charter flight carrying

United Nations Secretary General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The role of the secretary-g ...

Dag Hammarskjöld Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld ( , ; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 196 ...

crashed "Crashed" is the third U.S. rock Single (music), single, (the fifth overall), from the band Daughtry (band), Daughtry's debut album. It was released only to U.S. rock stations on September 5, 2007. Upon its release the song got adds at those stat ...

while en route to land at Ndola Airport in Itawa. Hammarskjöld and 15 others died in the crash. Although the cause of the crash has never been completely ascertained, it may have been caused by an aircraft attack. The crash site, 15 km west of the city centre (just south of the airport's current location), has been turned into the

. * On 4 April 2021,

Ethiopian Airlines Ethiopian Airlines (commonly referred to as Ethiopian; am, የኢትዮጵያ አየር መንገድ, translit=Ye-Ītyōṗṗyā āyer menged), formerly ''Ethiopian Air Lines'' (EAL), is the flag carrier of Ethiopia, and is wholly owned by ...

Flight 3981, a cargo flight operated by

Boeing 737-800 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boein ...

ET-AYL, mistakenly landed at the as-yet unopened airport (Copperbelt International Airport) after a flight from

Addis Ababa Bole International Airport Addis Ababa Bole International Airport is an international airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is in the Bole district, southeast of the city centre and north of Bishoftu. The airport was formerly known as '' Haile Selassie I Internationa ...

. It should have landed at the nearby Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport in Itawa instead. The aircraft then took off from Copperbelt International and flew to the correct airport (Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International). Two and a half hours later, a second Ethiopian Airways aircraft, Boeing 737-800 ET-AQP, also approached the as-yet unopened airport for a landing, but aborted in time and flew to the correct airport. It was reported that markings indicating the runway is closed were indistinct. Zambia's Transport Ministry opened an investigation into the incident.

References

External links

* * * {{Coord, 12, 57, 42, S, 28, 31, 00, E, type:airport_region:ZM, display=title Airports in Zambia Ndola Copperbelt Province Buildings and structures in Copperbelt Province Tourist attractions in Copperbelt Province Airports established in 2021