Kenya’s busiest airport and East Africa’s principal aviation hub, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), is facing a deepening safety crisis that threatens to erode its standing among global carriers and expose the country to international scrutiny.
An inspection by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has exposed widespread structural and operational risks at the country’s busiest airport, calling attention to decaying facilities, safety lapses, and inefficiencies that have become increasingly visible to passengers and pilots alike.
The inspection, conducted jointly with the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) and the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), was meant to assess the safety, efficiency, and environmental sustainability of flight operations at JKIA. It was triggered by a growing concern among airlines over deteriorating infrastructure and the rising frequency of safety-related disruptions.
The IATA mission identified serious deficiencies across the airport’s core systems, beginning from the runway and taxiways to fire and rescue services, wildlife control, and ground flight safety coordination.
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Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation
The only operational runway, Runway 06/24, was described in the report as being in “one stage or another of disintegration”. Heavy rubber deposits on the touchdown zones were also observed, obscuring centreline markings and reducing friction levels. These factors significantly heighten the risk of runway excursions during landings, particularly in wet weather.
“A huge pothole was observed on Taxiway ‘G’. Cracks and degeneration of the bitumen surface were also observed in several areas. This is the same with the apron and parking areas. A runway maintenance programme is in place but was not available to the team,” part of the audit report dated June 2025 reads.
The centreline and touchdown markings were barely visible under the thick rubber deposits, a situation that reduces pilot visibility on approach and compromises safe alignment.
IATA recommended immediate repainting to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 14 standards and regular friction testing, which it said had not been consistently conducted.
The problems extended to ground safety operations, where coordination between Ground Flight Safety (GFS) personnel and Air Traffic Control (ATC) was found to be weak.
The report also noted that the absence of clear handover procedures increased the risk of runway incursions and ground collisions. It further observed that marshallers lacked refresher training on signage and phraseology as required by ICAO standards.
The airport has only 77 active firefighting personnel, including trainees, against an approved establishment of 143. This shortfall has forced KAA to operate a three-shift pattern that fails to meet human factor and fatigue management standards.
As a result, it has recommended downgrading JKIA’s rescue and firefighting category from Category 9 to 7, a move that would bar large aircraft such as the Boeing 777, 787, and Airbus A350 from using the airport.
“The level of fire protection (Category) should be downgraded to the appropriate category commensurate with the available personnel and equipment. The recommended category is 7. Most of the wide-body passenger aircraft will not be able to land when the fire category is reduced,” the report reads.
Such a downgrade, if implemented following the audit, would effectively curtail long-haul international flights, severely impacting the airport’s capacity and Kenya’s global connectivity.
KCAA inspectors found open drainages and stagnant water bodies within the airport’s airside area, particularly near the cargo terminal and power station, which serve as habitats for birds and waterfowl.
The wildlife hazard management team, the report reveals, is undertrained and under-equipped, with several officers lacking certification in safety management systems, incident analysis, or the use of radar and GIS tools.
Stranded travelers awaiting clearance at JKIA terminal 1A during the Kenya Aviation Workers strike on September 11, 2024.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
Records of wildlife control activities were incomplete or missing altogether, and risk assessments were not being conducted regularly.
“Newly recruited Wildlife Hazard Management (WHM) officers did not receive any form of training; none of the permanent staff was trained in Safety Management System (SMS), incident investigation and analysis, and two of the permanent staff had not been trained on RT and GIS courses, which are fundamental to the implementation of the WHM plan. The operator has developed training plans from 2020 to date but not implemented as planned,” the report reads.
The audit warns that continued inaction could lead to accidents caused by bird strikes, potentially resulting in loss of life and aircraft damage.
“Newly recruited personnel are assuming responsibilities they are not well trained to handle, leading to poor decision-making on matters of emergency preparedness and handling of arising situations due to lack of experience by the newly recruited personnel,” read the report.
Kenya Aviation Workers Union (KAWU) secretary-general Moss Ndiema told Sunday Nation that the airport has been in a state of neglect, with efforts to get management to act on the issues remaining futile.
“These are simple fixes that do not need a foreign investor. KAA is making billions every year. How many billions does it take to fix all these issues and get things working? It is an issue of maintenance to make sure everything is working. As a union we raised these concerns long before the report, but they fell on deaf ears,” said Mr Ndiema.
He said the union is not opposed to the modernisation of the airport. Instead, he insisted that the government, through KAA, can borrow funds to expand and modernise the facility.
“We do not want an arrangement of someone – a foreigner – coming in to manage our airport for a period of time. We are opposed to PPP, and all we are saying is that the balance sheet by KAA is adequate enough to allow government to borrow to modernise our international airport,” he added.
The union is currently pushing for the dissolution of the KAA board over mismanagement of the airport.
KAA Acting Managing Director Dr Mohamud Gedi, however, told Sunday Nation that the authority has “taken proactive and sustained measures” to address safety and maintenance challenges, insisting that the report has been overtaken by events.
He said that KAA has a comprehensive maintenance contract in place covering the runway and taxiways, ensuring continuous inspection and repair of critical airside areas.
“As a result of these efforts, there are currently no potholes reported at the airport,” Dr Gedi said, adding that the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority continues to monitor the airside infrastructure to ensure compliance with both national and ICAO safety standards.
The authority has also said that it has secured an approved budget allocation for the full resurfacing of Runway 06/24 and adjacent taxiways, describing it as part of an ongoing effort to maintain “high safety and operational standards”.
Stranded travellers at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport following a strike by the Kenya Aviation Workers on September 11, 2024.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
He added that KAA is also in the final stages of completing its airport master plan, which includes provisions for the long-delayed construction of a second runway — a project he said would enhance JKIA’s capacity and operational resilience in the years ahead.
KAA has also boosted the number of rescue and firefighting personnel through targeted recruitment and training.
“Last year, we recruited an additional 75 firefighting personnel who completed their basic training in June 2025,” he said. “This has significantly strengthened the airport’s response capability and ensured continued compliance with ICAO standards.”
The renewed scrutiny of JKIA’s safety and management practices comes at a time when the airport is already under intense pressure over allegations of drug smuggling and insider collusion.
Two suspects — one identified only as Moha, an alleged airport employee, and another seen in a yellow reflector jacket guiding a foreign drug trafficker through security at Terminal 1A — were recently questioned by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Kiambu Road.
DCI detectives this week also intercepted a 41-year-old woman attempting to smuggle pellets of cocaine to Dubai through JKIA. The suspect, identified as Anna Nekesa Kisaka, had turned herself into what investigators described as a “human vessel”, concealing several pellets of cocaine inside her body in a desperate attempt to evade airport security.
According to the DCI’s Anti-Narcotics Unit, Kisaka was stopped moments before boarding after officers acting on intelligence flagged her for additional screening. Their suspicions were confirmed when body scans revealed the concealed narcotics. She was placed under medical supervision, where she later excreted three cocaine pellets.
