O. R. Tambo International Airport Johannesburg International Airport |
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Summary | |||||||||||||||
Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||
Owner | Airports Company South Africa | ||||||||||||||
Serves |
Johannesburg, South Africa Pretoria, South Africa |
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Location | Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, South Africa | ||||||||||||||
Hub for | |||||||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 5,558 ft / 1,694 m | ||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 26°08′21″S 028°14′46″E / 26.13917°S 28.24611°ECoordinates: 26°08′21″S 028°14′46″E / 26.13917°S 28.24611°E | ||||||||||||||
Map | |||||||||||||||
Location in Greater Johannesburg | |||||||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||||||
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Statistics (Apr 2016 - Mar 2017) | |||||||||||||||
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Source: Passenger Statistics
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Passengers | 20,692,780 |
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Aircraft movements | 220,934 |
Economic impact | $3.2 billion |
Social impact | 128.2 thousand |
O. R. Tambo International Airport (IATA: JNB, ICAO: FAOR) (ORTIA) is a major international airport in Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, South Africa, near the city of Johannesburg and, to a lesser extent, the executive capital Pretoria. It serves as the primary airport for domestic and international travel to/from South Africa and is Africa's busiest airport with a capacity to handle up to 28 million passengers annually with non-stop flights to all continents except Antarctica. The airport is the hub of South Africa's largest international and domestic carrier, South African Airways (SAA), and a number of smaller local airlines. The airport handled a total of over 20 million passengers in 2016.
It was originally known as Jan Smuts International Airport (hence the airport's former ICAO code, "FAJS"), after South Africa's former prime minister of that name. The airport was renamed Johannesburg International Airport in 1994 when the newly reformed South African government implemented a national policy of not naming airports after politicians. The policy was however reversed later, and the airport renamed again on 27 October 2006 after Oliver Reginald Tambo, a former President of the African National Congress.
The airport was founded in 1952 as "Jan Smuts Airport," two years after his death, near the town of Kempton Park on the East Rand. It displaced the "Palmietfontein International Airport," which had handled European flights since 1945.