Johannesburg International Airport

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Johannesburg International Airport Template:Airport codes is a large airport near the city of Johannesburg, South Africa and the largest in Africa. It is the main airport in Gauteng Province and South Africa as a whole. It was formerly known as Jan Smuts International Airport after a famous South African statesman, but it was renamed in the mid 1990s. The airport is the hub of South Africa's largest international and domestic airline, South African Airways, and a number of smaller local airlines.

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History

The airport was founded in 1952 as Jan Smuts Airport near the town of Kempton Park on the East Rand. In the same year of its inception, it had the honourable distinction of ushering in the Jet Age, when the first commercial flight of a De Havilland Comet jet took off from London Heathrow International Airport bound for Johannesburg.

Johannesburg International Airport was used as a test airport for the Concorde during the 1970s, to determine how the aircraft would perform while taking off and landing at high altitude. During the 1980s many countries stopped trading with South Africa because of apartheid, and so many airlines had to stop flying to the airport. In addition, South African Airways was refused rights to fly over most African countries, forcing them to fly around the "bulge" of Africa. This required specially-modified aircraft like the Boeing 747-SP. Following the ending of apartheid, the airport's name was changed to its current, politically-neutral, name and these restricted were discontinued.

The airport overtook Cairo International Airport in 1996 as the busiest airport in Africa, and is the second-busiest airport in the Africa-Middle East region after Dubai. Figures for 2004 show that more than 15.3 million people passed through the airport, an increase of some 7.3% on 2003 figures. The airport is one of the 100 busiest in the world ([1]).

There are plans, to create a new transit terminal between the domestic and international terminals, which will also house the Gautrain station linking the airport to Sandton, one of the metropolitan area's main business districts and a primary tourist area.

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Airport Information

Johannesburg International Airport is regarded as a "hot and high" airport. Situated some 1680 metres above sea level, the air is thin. This has implications for the performance of aircraft at altitude. For example, a flight from Johannesburg to New York, currently operated with an Airbus A340-300e, must stop in Dakar for refuelling, since the aircraft is not able to make the run on one tank of fuel. This is because of decreased performance on take-off from the airport, where an aircraft cannot take off fully laden with fuel, cargo and passengers, and must use a longer stretch of runway to reach take-off velocity. By contrast, the return leg of the flight from New York to Johannesburg used to be a non-stop 14-hour flight, with better performance of the aircraft in New York because the city is at sea level. The New York-Johannesburg flight was the second-longest commercial flight in the world in 2003, only after the Atlanta-Johannesburg flight, both operated by South African Airways. As SAA sees a market is West Africa, all flights now go via Dakar, Senegal or Sal Island.

There are two parallel runways, which run north-south, and a disused cross runway. The western runway, 03L/21R, is over 4400m in length, making it one of the world's longest international airport runways. This is due to the aforementioned rarefied atmosphere problem - fully laden aircraft require a far greater length of runway to achieve take-off velocity at this altitude than they would normally.

During busy periods, outbound flights use the western runway for take-off, while inbound flights use the eastern runway for landing. Wind factors may cause numerous variations, but on most days flights will take off to the north and land from the south.

There are six terminals at the airport, but these can be broken down into three major areas: the international terminal; the domestic terminal; and the transit terminal. The transit terminal houses disused parts of the old domestic terminals and is to be upgraded to create a functional link between domestic and international.

The airport is likely to see the arrival of the new Airbus A380 in its first years of service, as Airbus has already listed the airport as one of the few destinations worldwide capable of handling the aircraft, and also because many international airlines operate long-haul routes to Johannesburg. For example, there are at least seven daily flights from London, all making use of Boeing 747-400s.

Johannesburg International also serves as grounds for the South African Airways Museum, a room filled with South African Airways memorabilia and which started as an idea by two fans of the airline until they could set it up in one of Jan Smuts International's buildings in 1987.

In 2006, Delta Air Lines will commence service from Johannesburg-Atlanta (via Dakar) making Delta the only US airline to serve Africa. South African Airways already operates three daily flights to the USA.

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Airlines

The following airlines fly in and out of Johannesburg International Airport:

In addition, Cargo flights are flown there by DAS Air Cargo, Fast Air and Singapore Airlines Cargo.

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Renaming Controversy

In late 2005, a name change was proposed for the airport to Oliver Tambo International, after former ANC President Oliver Tambo.

In January 2006 Duma Nkosi, council mayor of the ANC-controlled Ekurhuleni Metro Council, announced that the renaming was at an advanced stage. If approved and enacted, this would fly against the precedent of having neutrally-named airports around South Africa.

Critics have noted the considerable expense involved in renaming the airport, and the decision to use a politician as the name would be obscure, confusing and in some instances, offensive.

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External links

Template:World-airportde:Flughafen Johannesburg id:Bandara Internasional Johannesburg

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