New Maritius Terminal To Improve Tourism

The Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (SSR) international airport of Mauritius, was originally built around WWII to serve as an RAF airfield/base on the island. With time and the island's development, it changed its purpose and became a passenger airport, serving as the national carrier's, Air Mauritius hub.

In the mid 80s, with tourists arrivals on the rise and in order to better prepare for the future, the airport had its first renovation and expansion works with a new passenger terminal and the extension of the current runway so as larger jets be able to land and take off.

In the past couple of years, it has known several small renovations in order to ease passenger traffic.

In the 1980s, nobody thought that the Mauritian airport would see huge amounts of traffic as it has been the case for the past 8-10 years. In 2008 only, over 2.6 million passengers went through its gates! As so and in view of offering a quality service to airlines and passengers, the management company, AML (Airports of Mauritius Ltd) teamed with an subsidiary company of ADPG (Aeroports De Paris Group) to build the new passenger terminal in December 2009.

The project, valued at over 300M US$, is expected to be delivered about 3 years later (late 2012-early 2013).

The new terminal will have a passenger capacity of nearly 4 million per year (1640/hour at peak), a larger surface area of around 57 000 square meters (3400 M2 for commercial use, 2200 M2 for lounges), 8 contact stands (Airbus A380 compatible!), 52 check-in desks, 9 telescopic bridges, 6 baggage carrousels, tour operator counters, modern parking lot, closer and larger taxi parking zone and many more facilities.

The new terminal is also expected to help the national carrier Air Mauritius become an important force in the region and improve transits for both airlines and tourists visiting the paradise island of Mauritius.