Luanda - The new Luanda Dr. António Agostinho Neto International Airport will start operating at the end of this year (2023), said on Monday the President of the Republic, João Lourenço.
The new international airport takes an area of 1,324 hectares and will have capacity for 15 million passengers and a volume of goods of 50,000 tons per year.
Speaking to journalists at the end of visit to the international airport, the Head of State expressed his satisfaction with the physical progress of the works.
"We will have the airport by the end of the year. We will unveil it", he said, without giving an exact date.
During the visit, João Lourenço met with members of the Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), institution in charge of the construction work.
President Lourenço said that until the inauguration date, the airport will be in conditions to serve passengers.
João Lourenço reiterated that, in order to satisfy the movement of passengers, taking into account the potential of the new airport, negotiations are underway with the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing, for the acquisition of new aircraft.
"We are negotiating with Boeing. It is a negotiation that has been going on for some time and we want to believe that this time, yes, we will end up negotiating a new package of Boeing airplanes for long haul", he said.
During the guided tour, accompanied by members of the government, João Lourenço inspected the air navigation and airport management building, the regional and integrated control center, the passenger terminal, the boarding area, the commercial, check-in, vip, screening, baggage collection, domestic and regional landing areas, among others.
The new airport has two double runways and is sized to receive, among others, B747 and A380 aircraft, currently the largest commercial aircraft.
The southern runway, the airport's largest, is 4,000 meters long and 60 meters wide, so, in June 2022 it received the first experimental flight of a Boeing 777 aircraft from the Angolan airline TAAG.
President João Lourenço last visited the works of the new airport in December 2022.
