Before August 2021, the Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport was at an
old location, in the Itawa suburb of Ndola (south-east of the city centre). Ndola's airport in Itawa officially became a civilian airport in the 1950s after first being used as a military base. Previously, it was known as
Ndola Airport and in September 2011, President
Michael Sata decided to rename the airport in honour of
Simon Kapwepwe, the nation's former vice-president. Construction of the new airport began in 2017 and families staying at the site of the new airport were compensated. On 5 August 2021, Ndola's airport was officially moved from Itawa to a new address, 15 kilometres west of the city centre, just north of the
Dag Hammarskjöld Crash Site Memorial, which is its current address. While under construction, the airport's current location was known as the
Copperbelt International Airport until construction finished in August 2021,'
when it was commissioned by President Edgar Lungu. At that point, it was renamed Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport', the name of the original airport. The new airport also retained the same
IATA code (NLA). The new airport was engineered by the
Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC International) at a cost of $397 million. Ndola remains having one commercial airport. == Facilities ==