A section of Ugandans has woken up to a debate on Twitter questioning whether Entebbe International Airport has been rebranded to Huen Airport.
One of the notable Ugandans that have been engrossed in this twitter debate is NTV media personality Andrew Kyamagero who tweeted, “Go to google and type “Huen airport” see the results and have a good day”.
When someone googles Huen airport, the first-hand result shown is Entebbe International Airport. Given the intonation of the word Huen, this could have led to the speculation and debate among Ugandans that the country’s International Airport could have been sold off to the Chinese.
Worse still, this comes after reports circulated in the media speculating that Uganda stood to lose control of Entebbe International Airport to Chinese lenders over a $350 million loan.
President Museveni comments on the issue in an interview with the Reuters news agency at the National Leadership Institute (NALI) in Kyankwanzi on Dec. 04 attempted to dismiss claims that the Airport had been “mortgaged” to Chinese lenders who can take control of it in case of default.
“I wonder which airport is to be taken and by who, “Museveni said, “I don’t remember mortgaging the airport for anything.”
Museveni also said firmly that Uganda has the capacity to pay the Chinese debt.
“Our terms of agreement are very clear,” he said, “There is no problem, they will be paid.”
However, there should be less reason for Ugandans to worry as Huen turns out to be Entebbe International Airport’s ICAO airport code.
The ICAO airport code or location indicator is a four-letter code designating aerodromes around the world. These codes are defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization and published in ICAO Document 7910: Location Indicators are used by air traffic control and airline operations such as flight planning.
ICAO codes are also used to identify other aviation facilities such as weather stations, international flight service stations or area control centres, whether or not they are located at airports. Flight information regions are also identified by a unique ICAO code.
The International Civil Aviation Organization was formed in 1947 under the auspices of the United Nations, and it established flight information regions (FIRs) for controlling air traffic and making airport identification simple and clear.