Caption: Roberts International Airport in Liberia which will soon benefit from a major upgrading project initiated by the Royal HaskoningDHV – NACO joint venture.

The partnership between Royal HaskoningDHV in South Africa (formerly SSI Engineers & Environmental Consultants) and NACO (Netherlands Airport Consultants) also a Royal HaskoningDHV Group subsidiary, has secured a contract for major upgrading work and long term master planning for Liberia’s only international airport, Roberts International (RIA), serving the country’s capital, Monrovia.

The partnership is an extension of the highly successful NACO-SSI JV which has executed airport related consultancy work throughout Africa, particularly in Botswana, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania and The Gambia.

The Liberia Civil Aviation Authority (LCAA) have appointed the NACO led team to provide consultancy services for the Master Plan Update and Initial Design Development for RIA, based on the consultant agreement signed between the two parties earlier in 2012.

The project scope includes three work packages.

WP 1 – Inception Phase & Air Traffic Forecast, tasks include a review of existing data, analysis of existing infrastructure and status, and Air Traffic Forecast projections for the next 25 years.

WP 2 – Airside Pavement Assessment, which includes visual inspections and analysis of geotechnical data in order to provide a report providing recommendations for short term and long term improvements to existing airside pavements.

WP 3 – Master Plan, that involves updating the Master Plan incorporating the Pavement Report and providing development plans including CAPEX for a 5, 15 & 25 year period.

The Inception Report has already been completed following a site visit by the consultants’ project team members to RIA during September 2012. The team conducted on-site investigations, interviews with airport stakeholders and data collection. During this visit the airside pavements were thoroughly inspected, all aeronautical equipment was assessed, all relevant airport facilities were visited and airport stakeholders were interviewed.

The remainder of WP2 and the WP3 Master Plan are expected to be delivered by the end of 2012 and will include cost estimates and priority tasks which will allow LCAA to schedule the remedial and upgrading works.