IN SHORT: Kenya has appointed the Trade and Development Bank and Africa Finance Corporation as lead arrangers for a $1.2 billion expansion of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The project aims to triple annual passenger capacity from 7.5 million to 22 million. Financing will be structured around airport-generated revenues supplemented by development finance institutions and commercial banks. Construction will take three years. The announcement clears up months of controversy following the 2024 Adani collapse and competing claims about Chinese contractors and procurement irregularities.
Kenya has finally given Nairobi’s main airport a credible financing plan, tapping two pan-African multilateral lenders to structure the $1.2 billion JKIA expansion after a turbulent two years that saw an Adani-led concession cancelled, an alternative Chinese-led deal denied, and procurement controversy swirl around one of East Africa’s most strategically important infrastructure projects. Transport Minister Davis Chirchir confirmed on June 19 that TDB and AFC have been mandated to mobilise capital from DFIs and commercial banks, with JKIA’s own revenue streams as the financing anchor.
- The project will expand JKIA’s annual passenger capacity from 7.5 million to 22 million, a near-tripling that would transform Nairobi’s competitive position against Addis Ababa and Kigali. It includes rehabilitation of existing terminals and airfield infrastructure, construction of a new passenger terminal, expansion of aprons and taxiways, and modernisation of aviation systems. The government confirmed the maximum project cost is Ksh154.2 billion ($1.2 billion), significantly below the Ksh375 billion figure that had circulated in media reports.
- TDB and AFC will crowd in DFIs and commercial lenders behind the airport revenue model. This structure keeps the project off the sovereign debt balance sheet, addressing a direct concern raised by Finance Minister Mbadi who told parliament the expansion would impose no strain on sovereign debt. Neither institution has disclosed a financing timeline, but the RFP for contractors closed May 14 following a March 3 advertisement. Construction contract award is pending.
- The project’s history reflects Kenya’s post-Adani infrastructure financing reset. The original Adani deal, valued at $1.85 billion as a 30-year concession, was cancelled by President Ruto in November 2024 after US prosecutors indicted the Adani Group founder. Reports then linked a Chinese consortium and a company associated with Zimbabwean businessman Wicknell Chivayo to a new contract, claims the government explicitly denied. Minister Chirchir said the company named in those reports had no role in the procurement process.
- East Africa’s aviation rivalry gives Kenya’s timeline urgency. Rwanda’s Bugesera International Airport, backed by Qatar Airways, is targeting 14 million annual passengers when fully operational. Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa Bole International Airport is already handling more passengers than JKIA and has expansion plans in progress. Entebbe is building with Boeing procurement support. JKIA at 7.5 million annual capacity, against 8.8 million actual passengers in 2025, is already operating over design limit.
The TDB and AFC appointment gives the JKIA expansion institutional credibility that the previous controversies had eroded. Both institutions are multilateral lenders in which Kenya is a member-shareholder, giving the government direct influence over the financing terms while providing international investors with the governance assurance that a bilateral or private deal would not. The structure also positions the expansion within Africa’s broader infrastructure self-financing narrative, using African DFIs to fund African aviation without dependence on foreign concessional finance.
The Bigger Picture: JKIA is Kenya’s most strategically important piece of infrastructure. It moves more than passengers. It processes Kenya’s flower and horticultural exports, its pharmaceutical and manufacturing cargo, its diaspora remittances through visiting investors, and its role as regional headquarters for multinationals, NGOs and diplomatic missions. A JKIA that handles 22 million passengers annually is a fundamentally different competitive asset from one straining at 8.8 million. The financing structure announced on June 19 is the clearest signal yet that the expansion will actually happen, after two years of deals collapsing and controversies multiplying. Kenya’s aviation future now has a credible path.
Source: CNBC Africa, June 19 2026 / The Star, June 18 2026
