The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has introduced a new parking management system at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi.
The system has been implemented and will be managed by Kenya Airports Parking Services (KAPS). It is hoped that it will help improve passenger experience at the airport.
The new system comes ahead of the planned modernization of JKIA’s terminals T1B, C and D, aimed at increasing the airport’s annual handling capacity to over 10 million passengers.
JKIA, the busiest and fastest growing airport hub in East and Central Africa, currently handles an average of eight million passengers annually, with an estimated annual traffic growth rate of 12%. More than 20,000 passengers are dropped and picked up at JKIA daily, with more than 14,000 vehicular movements.
According to Alex Gitari, acting managing director at KAA, the new parking management system will introduce an efficient, stress-free access, parking and exit experience for motorists visiting the airport.
“The new system introduces a number of innovations, such as displaying available parking spaces at the different airport parking zones on entry,” he explained. “We have also eliminated pay points at exit points to ensure smooth exit by motorists from the airport.”
The new parking system introduces payment by mobile money, specifically M-Pesa using the unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) code *486*12. This is in addition to the radio frequency identification (RFID) chip system that scans vehicle details to enable swift passage through the airport.
