UN aviation body ranks Kenya second best in airport security in Africa

UN aviation body ranks Kenya second best in airport security in Africa
An aviation workers strike paralysed operations at the Jomo Kenyatta Intl Airport/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya August 1 – The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has ranked Kenya the second best in the continent in terms of airport security, the country’s civil aviation authority announced on Saturday.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) said in a statement released in the Kenyan capital Nairobi that the country attained the highest regional sustainability indicator in aviation security following an audit in May by ICAO, a United Nations specialized aviation body.

ICAO handed Kenya a score of 91.7 percent, up from 88 percent in 2015 on the implementation of critical elements of an aviation system, the highest ever recorded in East and Central Africa.

The score put Kenya second after South Africa.

The agency inspected Kenya’s two main airports, the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, and Moi International Airport in Mombasa.

“This is a historic feat for Kenya as she has managed to accomplish the target set by ICAO in the current Global Aviation Security Plan that desired all of the states to attain an effective implementation of above 90 percent by 2030,” said KCAA.

The objective of a security audit is to assure the safety of passengers, crew, ground personnel, and the public at airports.

XINHUA

Xinhua News Agency, founded on November 7, 1931, is China’s national news agency as well as a global news and information network. Xinhua has set up a global news and information gathering network, with headquarters in Beijing, 33 domestic bureaus in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities plus the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as 140 bureaus in the rest of the world. Xinhua is yet to set up a bureau in Taiwan, where it has posted resident correspondents. Xinhua provides its worldwide subscribers with news and financial information products in the forms of text, photo, graphics, audio, video, and mobile phone text messages 24 hours a day in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.