O.R Tambo international Airport, Johannesburg

O.R-Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg

This is the major international airport located near the city of Johannesburg. It serves as the primary airport for domestic and international travel to and from South Africa and is one of the busiest airports in South Africa with a capacity to handle up to 30 million passengers annually. The airports actually serve all continents except Antarctica. The famous airport is the hub of South Africa largest international and domestic carrier. The first actual renaming of the airport was done in 1994 when the newly reformed South African government implemented a national policy of not naming airports after politicians.

The airport information

The famous O.R Tambo international airport is a hot and high airport which is situated almost 1700 meters above sea level where the air is thin making the aircraft to reduce weight by loading less fuel than they would have otherwise. The actual thin air is the reason why we have longer runways in the airport. On some major routes like the North America route it actually means that flights form Johannesburg actually need to refuel while en route while the return flight originating from lower altitude airport can actually upload enough fuel to reach the city of Johannesburg.

Runways

There are two major parallel north –south runways and a much discussed runway. The famous western runway is practically over 4400 m long making it one of the longest international runways in the world. During the busy periods, outbound flights usually use the western runway for takeoff while inbound flights use the eastern runway for landing. Wind factors at times cause numerous variations but most days flights will take off to the north and land from the south. Passengers coming can pre book Johannesburg airport taxis for on time pickups.

South African airways

The famous O.R Tambo international Airport used to serve as grounds for the South African airways museum. This famous room full of South African airways memorabilia was actually started by some two fans of the airlines as temporary location until they could set it up in one of Jan Smults International’s building in the year 1987.The famous museum gradually shifted to the now famous rand airport.