Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), East Africa’s most bustling aviation hub, has recently found itself entangled in a recurrent narrative of power outages for the third time in as many months. The most recent blackout, experienced just two days ago, has sparked heightened concerns regarding the reliability of the airport’s power infrastructure, prompting an urgent examination of the root causes and potential solutions.
Since August, JKIA has grappled with intermittent power outages, with the latest incident leaving both Terminals 1A and 1E submerged in total darkness. Despite rigorous testing, two of the four generators failed to initiate, plunging crucial sections of the airport into a blackout that persisted for approximately 15 minutes. This underscores critical questions regarding the airport’s resilience in the face of such disruptions and its ability to swiftly recover from unforeseen technical failures.
Active as a journalist since 1987, with a background in newspapers, magazines, and a regional news station, Richard has been covering commercial aviation on a freelance basis since late 2016.
Richard is contributing to AirInsight since December 2018. He also writes for Airliner World, Aviation News, Piloot & Vliegtuig, and Luchtvaartnieuws Magazine. Twitter: @rschuur_aero.
