Kigali International Airport served 135,189 passengers. In 2008, the airport served about 270,000 passengers. In May 2011, the Rwanda CAA announced that Kigali airport will be upgraded to meet the strong demand. Works started in October 2012 and will be completed in May 2014. In 2012, data from Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority shows that passenger traffic through Kigali International Airport grew by 30 per cent to 488,903 last year, up from 377,327 in 2011. The airport handled over 300 flights a week. The airport is designed to handle 400,000 passengers per year. According to last figures, international and domestic passenger numbers were nearly
Kigali it remained a relatively small city until the 1970s due to government policies restricting rural-to-urban migration. The population reached 115,000 by 1978, and 235,000 by 1991. The city lost a large fraction of its population during the 1994 genocide, including those killed and those who fled to neighbouring countries. From 1995, however, the economy began to recover and large numbers of long-term Tutsi refugees returned from Uganda. Many of these refugees settled in Kigali and other urban areas, due to difficulty in obtaining land in other parts of the country. This phenomenon, coupled with a high birth rate and increased