Chinese Builders Are on Every Package of Ethiopia’s New Airport
ETHIOPIA · INFRASTRUCTURE
Key Facts
—The project: Ethiopian Airlines is building a new international airport at Abusera, in Bishoftu, about 40km from Addis Ababa. The airline’s own factsheet puts the first phase alone at US$12.5 billion.
—The shortlist: The airline has published prequalified bidders for four packages: main facilities, support facilities, airfield and infrastructure, and offsite links.
—China’s position: Ten Chinese state-linked contractors appear across the four lists, including CCECC and CRBC, which are prequalified for all four.
—The American entry: The Lane Construction Corporation is the only United States-domiciled bidder. It appears on three packages, in every case inside a joint venture led by Italy’s WEBUILD and Türkiye’s ICTAS, and never on the main facilities package.
—A qualifier: Lane has been a wholly owned subsidiary of WEBUILD since 2016, so describing it as an independent American bidder overstates the case.
—Also on the list: Türkiye, Italy, France, Qatar, South Korea, Portugal, India and Russia are all represented. The Ethio-Djibouti Railway is shortlisted for offsite links in a joint venture with CCECC.
—Not yet awarded: Nothing has been awarded. Prequalification only decides who may bid, and the airline’s chief executive has said selection has slipped to early January 2027.
Chinese state contractors are prequalified for every one of the four work packages on Ethiopia’s new Bishoftu airport, a project the airline puts at US$12.5 billion for its first phase alone. The only American company on the shortlist appears three times, each time as the junior member of a European-led joint venture.
What the Bishoftu airport shortlist shows
Ethiopian Airlines Group has published prequalified bidders for the Bishoftu International Airport project across four engineering, procurement, construction and finance packages. They cover main facilities, support facilities, airfield and infrastructure, and offsite links.
Ten Chinese entities appear across those lists. Two of them, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and China Road and Bridge Corporation, are prequalified for all four, CRBC is a subsidiary of a third listed firm, China Communications Construction Company; CCECC belongs to the rival state group China Railway Construction Corporation.
The others include Beijing Construction Engineering Group, Beijing Urban Construction Group, China Railway Beijing Engineering Group and Shandong Luqiao. Between them they cover every category of work the project requires.
The document is a prequalification notice and awards nothing. It decides who is permitted to submit a tender, which is a meaningful filter in itself.
The American position, stated precisely
One United States-domiciled contractor appears anywhere on the shortlist. The Lane Construction Corporation is prequalified for support facilities, airfield and infrastructure, and offsite links.
In each case it is the third-named member of a joint venture with Italy’s Webuild and Türkiye’s ICTAS. It does not appear on the main facilities package at all, and it never appears alone.
There is a further qualification that changes the picture. Lane has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Webuild since 2016, so it is an American operating company inside an Italian group rather than an independent American bidder.
Washington has been engaging on this. Mark Mitchell, a deputy assistant secretary of commerce, has said the United States is pushing to secure strong American participation, and the South China Morning Post has reported officials exploring a link to Ethiopian Airlines aircraft orders.
The other flags on the list
The shortlist is genuinely international, which cuts against any reading of a closed process. Türkiye is represented by ICTAS, Kalyon and MAPA, Italy by Webuild and ICM, and France by VINCI.
Qatar appears through Urbacon and GB-ACT, South Korea through Samsung C&T, Portugal through Mota-Engil Africa and India through Afcons. Russia is present too, through JSC Natprojectstroy Group, on the offsite links package.
One entry deserves separate attention. The Ethio-Djibouti Railway, the state operator of the corridor connecting landlocked Ethiopia to the sea, is shortlisted for offsite links in a joint venture with CCECC.
That places the country’s principal trade corridor and its principal Chinese contractor inside the same bid. The airport and the corridor are being planned as one system.
What Ethiopia is actually building
The site is at Abusera, within the Bishoftu city administration, roughly 40km from the capital and 1,910 metres above sea level. Construction broke ground in January 2026.
The first phase is designed for 60 million passengers by 2030, with a master plan reaching 110 million. That would make it the largest airport in Africa by a wide margin.
It will not replace Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. Ethiopian Airlines has not said Bole will close, and the aviation analyst CAPA notes its future does not appear to be on the agenda for now. Bole handled about 12.1 million passengers in 2024 against an expanded capacity variously put at 22 to 25 million capacity.
The strategic logic is that Ethiopian Airlines has built Africa’s dominant hub carrier and is running out of room. Bole constrains the network before demand does.
Money, not engineering, is the constraint
Chief executive Mesfin Tasew told the airline’s annual performance briefing in late July that contractor selection had moved to early January 2027, from August 2026. The reason given was that bidders need time to arrange financing.
That is the tell. These packages are structured as engineering, procurement, construction and finance, meaning the contractor is expected to bring the money as well as the machinery.
The Reporter Ethiopia and the aviation outlet ch-aviation have put an external syndication of roughly US$9 billion in the hands of the African Development Bank. The airline confirmed the structure publicly in November 2025, naming the African Development Bank as initial mandated lead arranger, with the bank committing US$500 million of its own funds and coordinating up to US$8 billion in debt.
It also explains the shape of the shortlist. Firms that can raise sums of that scale against a sovereign-linked airline are a small group, and Chinese state contractors are disproportionately in it.
How to read this from outside Ethiopia
The temptation is to call it Chinese dominance and move on. The more accurate reading is that China is the only bidder pool deep enough to fill every category on a project of this size and structure.
European, Turkish, Gulf and Korean firms are all present and can win packages. What none of them does is appear everywhere.
The offsite links package is where the strategic weight sits. Roads and rail connecting the airport to Addis Ababa and onward to Djibouti are the pieces that outlast any terminal building.
Nothing here is settled. The awards are the story, and they are now expected in January.
Frequently asked questions
How much will the Bishoftu airport cost?
Ethiopian Airlines’ own factsheet puts the first phase at US$12.5 billion. Earlier African Development Bank documentation referred to an overall cost of around US$10 billion.
Which companies are shortlisted to build it?
Ten Chinese state-linked contractors appear across all four packages, alongside firms from Türkiye, Italy, France, Qatar, South Korea, Portugal, India and Russia. The Lane Construction Corporation is the only United States-domiciled bidder.
Will Bishoftu replace Addis Ababa Bole airport?
No. Ethiopian Airlines has not said what happens to Bole, which handled about 12.1 million passengers in 2024 against an expanded 25 million passenger capacity.
When will contracts be awarded?
Selection has slipped to early January 2027 from August 2026, according to remarks by the airline’s chief executive at the airline’s annual briefing in late July. Prequalification decides only who may bid.
Connected Coverage
Ethiopia has been building at scale through a difficult macroeconomic stretch, as we reported when it broke ground on what will be Africa’s largest airport and when it passed a record tax-financed budget. The competition to build and finance African infrastructure is the subject of our key topic, Africa: The New Scramble, with more on our Eastern Africa page.
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