JNBFAOR
O. R. Tambo International Airport
Photo: Hansueli Krapf, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
O. R. Tambo is the busiest airport in Africa and the reason most international visitors to South Africa see Johannesburg whether they meant to or not. It carried 20,083,399 passengers in the 2025/26 financial year — close to half the national network — and it is the only South African airport with a train into the city.
From the operator’s monthly filings · FY2025/26
- 20,083,399passengers, FY2025/26
- +8.4%against the previous year
- 40.8%of them international
- Decemberbusiest month
- Februaryquietest month
- 25 kmto Johannesburg
Two terminals, and the walk between them
Terminal A is international. Terminal B is domestic. They are joined by a walkway inside the building, so you never go outside and you never need a shuttle — but it is a genuine eight-to-ten minute walk with luggage, and longer from the far gates.
Changing from international to domestic? You clear immigration, collect your checked bag, carry it to Terminal B and check it in again. Sixty minutes is a missed connection. Ninety is tight. Two hours is comfortable. This is the single most common way a trip through O. R. Tambo goes wrong.
International-to-international connections stay inside Terminal A and are much quicker: ninety minutes is workable if your bag is checked through, which on a single ticket it usually is.
Getting into the city: the only airport train in the country
The Gautrain station is inside the terminal complex. Trains reach Sandton in about fifteen minutes, calling at Rhodesfield and Marlboro, and from Sandton the network continues to Rosebank, Park Station, Midrand, Centurion, Pretoria and Hatfield. In the peaks trains run roughly every twelve minutes.
Two things to know before you count on it. You need a Gautrain gold card, bought at the station — there is no tap-and-go with a bank card at the gate. And the airport service does not run through the night, which matters because the long-haul bank lands between five and eight in the morning. Check the first train against your own arrival.
Otherwise: metered taxis from the official rank, e-hailing from the signed pick-up bays, hotel shuttles, or a hire car. Johannesburg is about 25 km away; Sandton about the same. The variable is the motorway, not the distance. Full guide to the Gautrain · airport transfers.
Arrivals: how long it really takes to come out
If you are meeting someone, budget from the landing time, not the scheduled arrival.
- Domestic, hand luggage only: fifteen to twenty minutes.
- Domestic with a checked bag: about thirty minutes.
- International in the early-morning bank: sixty to ninety minutes. Passport control at O. R. Tambo backs up badly when several long-haul flights land together, which they do between five and eight.
The arrivals hall is public, so you can wait without a ticket. Park in the short-stay deck rather than circling: the kerbside lane is policed and overstaying is charged at the short-stay rate.
Parking, lounges, food and Wi-Fi
Parking runs on the usual three tiers: a free but time-limited kerbside drop-off, covered short-stay decks a few minutes from the doors, and open long-stay lots with a shuttle. Long stay wins beyond about three days and fills up in December. How to choose a tier.
Lounges are deeper here than anywhere else in the country: Bidvest Premier lounges that sell day passes at the door, bank-linked Slow Lounges, and the airline lounges — British Airways, Emirates, Qatar, Lufthansa, Turkish and others — in Terminal A. Both terminals have their own.
Food is the one South African airport where something is open essentially around the clock. The full-service restaurants are landside in the check-in halls; airside the choice narrows to quick-service outlets, and in Terminal A it narrows further after the evening departure wave. Halaal options exist in both terminals.
Wi-Fi is free with a data cap rather than a time limit — enough for messages and boarding passes, not for streaming. Bring an adapter: South Africa uses the large three-pin Type M socket at 230 V.
Departures: how early is early enough
Two hours domestic, three international — and at O. R. Tambo, unlike the smaller airports, that is not padding. The domestic security bank between six and eight in the morning is the worst queue in the country, and December compounds it.
What is not negotiable is the check-in cut-off: roughly 45 minutes before a domestic departure and 60 minutes before an international one. It closes on time whatever the queue behind you is doing.
Month by month: when O. R. Tambo is busy
These are the real monthly movements, taken from the operator’s own filings rather than from a press release. The pattern is flatter than most people expect: the busiest month is only about a third busier than the quietest.
Two things worth acting on. February is the quietest month here, not the middle of winter — the holiday traffic has gone and the northern-hemisphere escape season has not started. And October is unusually busy for a month nobody thinks of as peak, because spring in the Cape, the long conference calendar and the start of the European escape season all land together.
Five years of traffic
Each bar is one South African financial year, which runs from 1 April to 31 March. That is why a figure here will not match a calendar-year number you read elsewhere, and why any passenger figure published without its period is worth very little.
Common questions
What is the code for Johannesburg airport?
JNB is the IATA code and FAOR the ICAO code. The full name is O. R. Tambo International Airport, after Oliver Reginald Tambo. It is sometimes still called Johannesburg International, which was its name until 2006.
How do I get from Terminal A to Terminal B?
On foot, through a walkway inside the building. No shuttle and no going outside, but allow eight to ten minutes with luggage and more from the far gates.
How long do I need between flights at O. R. Tambo?
Ninety minutes international-to-international within Terminal A. Two hours if you are changing between international and domestic, because you clear immigration, collect your bag and check it in again in the other terminal. Sixty minutes is not enough for the second case.
Is there a train from O. R. Tambo to Sandton?
Yes — the Gautrain, from a station inside the terminal complex, in about fifteen minutes. You need a Gautrain gold card bought at the station, and the airport service does not run all night.
How many passengers use O. R. Tambo?
20,083,399 in the 2025/26 financial year, up 8.4 per cent on the year before. About 41 per cent of them were on international flights, the highest share of any South African airport.