Johannesburg O R Tambo International Airport in South Africa

Johannesburg O R Tambo International Airport in South Africa
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Inside Johannesburg O.R. Tambo International Airport in South Africa.

#ORTambo #Johannesburg #SouthAfrica

Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport is the busiest airport on the continent of Africa and is situated in the Kempton Park district of Johannesburg, 23 km north-west of the city centre and 46 km south of Pretoria city centre.
Formerly, Jan Smuts Airport, it has been renamed in honour of the late and former ANC President, Oliver Reginald Tambo, who was more commonly referred to by the name of OR Tambo.
Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport is one of the few airports in the world with scheduled passenger direct flights between all 6 inhabited continents and also serves as a continental gateway to many sub-Saharan countries.

Its formal aviation references are: IATA Airport Code – JNB and ICAO Airport Code – FAOR, and it is commonly abbreviated to by passengers by the acronym “ORTIA”, the initialised version of OR Tambo International Airport.

The airport handled over 21 million passengers in 2017.

It was originally known as Jan Smuts International Airport, after the former South African Prime Minister of the same name. The airport was renamed Johannesburg International Airport in 1994 when the newly elected African National Congress (ANC) government implemented a policy of not naming airports after politicians. This policy was later reversed, and on 27 October 2006 the airport was renamed after anti-apartheid politician Oliver Reginald Tambo (1917–1993).

The airport was founded in 1952 as Jan Smuts International Airport, two years after Smuts’s death, near the town of Kempton Park on the East Rand. It replaced Palmietfontein International Airport, which had handled European flights since 1945.

In 1943, a decision was made by the Cabinet of the Union of South Africa to construct three international airports with a Civil Airports Advisory Committee formed to investigate and report on the viability. That report was submitted to the Cabinet in March 1944 with one main international airport on the Witwatersrand and two smaller international airports at Cape Town and Durban. The South African Railways and Harbours Administration was given the role of managing the project and later in 1944, a member went to the United States to study standards and methods of construction.  Four possible sites around Johannesburg were identified, with one south of Johannesburg chosen but soon discarded due to being situated on land with gold bearing reefs below.  Sites were then narrowed down to Kempton Park and the existing airport at Palmietfontein. 

Layouts and rough costing for the two sites were established and submitted for a ministerial decision.  The site would be at Kempton Park and be named Jan Smuts Airport. The area outside Kempton Park was an expropriated undulating dairy farm of 3,706 acres with a 598 acre eucalyptus plantation. Sitting on a plateau, the area sloped away towards the east.  The area was drained by the Blesbok River.  The airport became operational on 1 September 1953. The new airport was officially opened by Minister for Transport, Paul Sauer on 4 October 1953 having taken eight years to build at £6.2 million. It had one main runway of 3,200m and two smaller ones of 2,514m that crossed the main with all runways being 60m wide. A 1,000 men had been employed in the repair workshops. The technical areas consisted of 2,957m of roads, 26,477sqm of concrete apron while the hangars had openings of 106m at a height of 21m. It was expecting to manage thirty flights-a-day and over 200,000 passengers that year.

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