Pemba Airport Upgrades in Mozambique and Zanzibar, Two Small Runways Asked to Carry Gas Money and Tourists
There are two Pemba airports, about 850 kilometres apart on the same coast, and both are too small for what is now being asked of them. Pemba, Mozambique, code POL, is the front door of a gas province that TotalEnergies reopened in January 2026. Pemba Island, Zanzibar, code PMA, is a clove island whose government wants it to catch up with Zanzibar's tourist boom. Each has a rebuilding plan, and in each the money and the timetable are the open questions.
Pemba, Mozambique
Pemba's airport sits on the edge of the city and carries almost everyone who comes to Cabo Delgado for work: gas contractors, aid staff, soldiers, officials (getting to Pemba). Its runway is about 1,800 metres long, short for the larger jets the gas projects would like to use, and its terminal and apron are cramped. At busy times aircraft have had to land or park at Nacala and Nampula instead.
Image: pxef.com
The state airports company, Aeroportos de Moçambique, has a plan in two phases. The first expands the terminal and the apron. The second lengthens the runway to 2,400 metres for larger aircraft serving the gas projects. In December 2025 its provincial director put the cost at 43.5 million dollars, adding a new power station, water supply, a rebuilt fire station, lighting and drainage. It was still looking for partners to pay for it.
Traffic is not waiting. Airlink, the South African carrier, flies Johannesburg to Pemba daily and from 30 March 2026 added a second flight on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the route the gas contractors use for crew changes. If ExxonMobil approves Rovuma LNG, the demand would rise again (the gas projects). Construction workers mostly fly on from Pemba to the project airstrip at Afungi rather than risk the road north (Palma and Afungi).
For Mozambique, an airport built for a provincial town now handles the logistics of one of the largest investments in Africa. The port faces the same squeeze (the port).
Pemba Island, Zanzibar
The airport near Chake Chake, often called Karume or Wawi airport, was built for about 45,000 passengers a year. By 2023 it was handling about 110,000, almost all of them on small planes from Zanzibar Town and Dar es Salaam (the island guide). Tourists who want to reach Pemba's reefs and forests have to land on Unguja first and change.
The Zanzibar government signed a 230-million-dollar contract to rebuild it in January 2023, and in June 2023 arranged 428 million dollars of financing backed by UK Export Finance for the airport and other infrastructure on the island. Construction officially began in May 2025. The plan is a terminal for 750,000 passengers a year and a longer runway able to take larger jets, so that visitors can fly to Pemba directly. President Hussein Mwinyi has promised to make it an international airport.
The politics are hard to miss. Pemba is the stronghold of the opposition ACT-Wazalendo, which rejected Mwinyi's re-election in October 2025 as stolen and only rejoined the unity government in September 2026 (Pemba's opposition). Pembans have long complained that the island grows the cloves while Unguja gets the airports, hotels and jobs (the clove economy). A big airport answers part of that grievance. It doesn't answer the one about votes.
The link between them
Booking sites list a new LAM route from Pemba, Mozambique, to Dar es Salaam from late October 2026. If it runs, the two Pembas will be a change of plane apart for the first time in years. Check with the airline before planning around it.