The African Airlines Association (Afraa) published their top 10 international airports in Africa, with Cape Town, Durban and OR Tambo taking the top three spots.
They may be world-class airports, but the standards for judging the ‘best’ airport don’t necessarily translate into a more enjoyable, or memorable experience.
I have no problem waiting for ages in an immigration queue, as long as I am entertained by what I can see around me. I am much more endeared by immigration officers chatting away in a foreign tongue, than a soulless official who stamps your passport unenthusiastically.
There is something distinctly original about travelling in Africa, and once you find out what it is, you’ll want more. There are tales of bush pilots pulling off incredible feats, including flying with a hangover.
There is such joy in descending after cruising above a vast expanse of nothingness and having to buzz away game before touchdown.
In the words of Getaway‘s editor, Keith Bain, there are airports ‘infinitely better than Cape Town’s ‘how far can we make them walk’ mallport.’
We asked our readers about some of their uniquely African airport encounters, and here are some of the shortlisted airstrips. If you have your own unique tale, add it to the conversation here.
Matekane Air strip, Lesotho
Matekane airstrip. Picture: Wikimedia Commons/ Tom Claytor
Matekane Airstrip looks like an absurd place to put a runway (and its not the only one on our list to be on the edge of a cliff), it looks more like a landing strip for an evil villain’s lair.
Measuring 400m, it’s one of the shortest runways in the world and the treacherous drop at the edge of the cliff is a sheer 500m drop. Definitely not a destination for the faint-hearted, the airstrip is used by doctors and charity organisations to service rural villages in the area.
Hoedspruit, South Africa
Picture: Wikimedia Commons/ Nolabob
The tales that come out of Hoedspruit sound like a fantasy story. A few green fever trees dotted here and there and wait for it…. hired cheetahs to keep game numbers at a manageable level, and to avoid wheel-strikes with warthogs at the airforce base.
This is according to Getaway photojournalist Lauren Dold, who has spent a lifetime landing and taking off on the runway near her hometown. ‘Even after Hoedspruit opened a commercial airport on the property, the cheetah continued to police the runway and delight safari-goers who sometimes got a glimpse of them resting in the shade while their aircraft taxied out.’
Eastgate airport in Hoedspruit airport is no backwater airstrip though, it has a runway long enough to land a jumbo jet!
Maun International Airport
Picture: Wikimedia Commons/ HP Baumeler
‘Stop the spread of HIV, rather masturbate,’ read a sign as you arrived at Maun airport in Botswana. This is according to one of our readers, Giles Palmar.
This kind of sign would sound farfetched to many, but to an experienced traveller, this probably won’t come as a surprise. Maun International Airport is the gateway to the Okavango Delta,
São Tomé International Airport
Picture: Flickr Commons/ Chuck Moravec
‘When you fly to the tiny islands of São Tomé and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea you first have to fly from Libreville through a glut of tropical storms to Sao Tome,’ says Peter Frost, Getaway‘s head of travel.
Flights from Libreville to São Tomé regularly have to fly into hazardous conditions, and require a gutsy pilot.
‘As you bank, you see these two massive towers – the Voice of America antennas and then realise that the tiny runway is between them and in the wild weather, this tiny Cessna has to negotiate ‘through the needle’ as they call it.
‘The first time, we couldn’t make it and flew all the way back to Libreville and tried again six hours later,’ says Peter. ‘We did it, but not without soiled underwear and various religious conversions.’
Interestingly, during the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War, the airport served as the base of operations for the Biafran Airlift: an international humanitarian relief effort to transport food and medicine to eastern Nigeria. It is estimated to have saved more than a million lives.
St Helena Airport
Picture: Wikimedia Commons/ Paul Tyson
Situated on the island where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled, lies another airstrip on the top of a cliff in the middle of the Atlantic.
The airport is on one of the only flat stretches of land on the island, but it’s situated in a tumultuous vortex of winds. When it’s too windy to land, the aircraft will head all the way to Ascension Island, 1200 km away, or back to South Africa or Namibia.
Airlink flies directly to St Helena Island, for those who would like a more wayward adventure.
Musiara Airstrip, Masai Mara, Kenya
Musiara Airstrip boarding gate and baggage claim. Picture: Flickr Commons/ Bit Boy
Because the Masai Mara National Reserve is such an expansive wilderness area, there is no airport. Instead, the area is served by a network of gravel airstrips, With Musiara being one of the most used and renowned.
At present, there are six domestic flights from Musiara Airstrip, which mainly services camps and nearby villages.
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