Separate terminal for big planes under construction

World leaders arriving in their private jets for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit will have a separate terminal at Jackson International Airport.
Civil Aviation Minister Alfred Manase took a group of ministers to see the work being done at the airport. He explained that the VIP processing facility would have space to park five 747 jets at any one time in November.
“We started in the first week of August and we got only two months to have this project completed and there’s a lot of accelerated work that’s happening,” Manase said.
“The contractors are working 24 hours, seven days a week trying to meet the target so that we get them all done before the leaders arrive.
“This is the very important people’s processing facility. They will come through here. There’s a lot of work to be done on the apron.
“There’s additional work being done on the current international terminal. There will be a concourse and an additional aerobridge, making it to four, enough room to park two 747s and one smaller aircraft in between.”
Manase said revamping work of the main runway started about four months ago. It is much smoother for landing and takeoff.
All the airport development projects are being funded by the government at a cost of about K65 million and done by local contractors.
“The whole works is on target. The team here is making sure that Apec is delivered on time,” Manase said.
Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel said it was nice to see some of the team in action and the evidence of where the money was going to.
“These are legacy type projects and the benefits are not just on Apec one-off. Upgrade of the main runway is important. We are going to have visitors coming into the airport as well. This will be the new VIP terminal going in the future,” Abel said.
“For now we just want to welcome our leaders in a proper manner, a separate segregated area and be able to park all those 747s.”