I was at NBO very early this morning after the fire broke out. It was a mess, and it exposed a lot of flaws with Kenya/Nairobi's emergency preparedness. Thankfully no casualties have been reported. Biggest fault was that there was no dedicated fire truck for the airport. As far as I know, they were using a private water company to put out the flames and they were running "dangerously low" on water. Early on there were even using a bucket brigade because it took over an hour for the city fire truck to come (no thanks to Nairobi's traffic). Also, reports (don't know if its true) was that the airport didn't have any smoke detectors, either.
But as much as this is a bad incident, the silver (i'd say gold) lining is that NBO will be rebuilt. There was construction of a second terminal and second runway, but hopefully this incident can expedite that, and they can build a much more modern facility. As it is, the airport was way over capacity.
Originally Posted by
baggageinhall
Wilson has two runways which are just over and just under 5000ft long so far too short for the average widebody
Correct. It's far too small for wide bodies. Also, they recently put up housing structures near Wilson, so unless they tear them down, Wilson airport is useless for international flights.
Originally Posted by
Ghentleman
Airport reopened for cargo and domestic flights, as these facilities are not damaged.
Re-routing through an airport outside Kenya will be hard as customs and immigration facilities are destroyed, hence passengers need clear customs in another Kenyan airport.
Probably they will set up temporary facilities in NBO, there's talk about international flights departing/arriving again as early as tomorrow...
Yup. Most flights were rerouted domestically to Mombasa, Eldoret, and Kisumu. The immigration department has done a very good job in the situation, and they've processed all passengers that were due to land. They've also been very active on twitter, giving helpful updates and information.