Construction of new terminal at Tirana International Airport completed

TIRANA, March. 13 – After a period of construction that lasted nearly two years, Tirana International Airport (TIA)’s new terminal is now ready to be inaugurated on 21 March 2007, and the following day it will see its first departing flight. The state-of-the-art terminal with an expandable capacity of one million passengers a year will be opened as scheduled.
TIA’s new building has a surface area of about 8,500 square meters, and ranges in height from eight meters internally up to 16 meters externally. It is a single storey glass structure supported by more than 1,500 tons of high tension steel. The architectural gem, occupying a space of 96 meters by 70 meters, is a top quality fully air-conditioned facility, offering full-range passenger services and retail facilities. The building has 200 meters of underground service channels.
The new terminal will house eleven retail units, including souvenir and duty-free shops, bars, restaurants and cafes. There will be restaurants available for both departing and arriving passengers, while just outside the terminal a covered piazza-style bar with traditional Albanian stone fa袤e will offer a very pleasant and relaxing view of the building and its surrounds.
“I want to express our gratitude and respect to those who have contributed towards building the first steel structure of its kind in Albania. I would like to thank the construction company Trema Engineering 2 and their engineers, architects, workers and administration staff, and also the subcontractors, for their commitment. It is a success that no major injuries or casualties were recorded during the construction works,” said TIA Chief Construction Officer, Mr. Alexander Ising.
Just to the north of the old passenger terminal, TIA’s new cargo terminal, a two-storey building with import-export and customs facilities and a capacity of 4,500 tons of freight per year, will begin operations simultaneously, on 22 March.
In addition to the new passenger and cargo terminals, TIA also completed this month several other major projects. The new seven-kilometer access road, which cuts the distance from Albania’s capital Tirana to the Airport by eight kilometers, will be opened along with the new terminal, while the 1.5 kilometer-long new circulatory road and new car parking facilities were also both completed in March 2007.
Previous large projects that have added to the overall development of the Airport include the 6.8 kilometer-long perimeter road, completed in November 2005 and the 150 meter-long new bridge added to the existing road in February 2006.
Besides these major works, the Airport’s modernized infrastructure includes many smaller improvements, bringing the aviation facility up to the latest, state-of-the-art international standards. Thus, new water and electricity supply networks and a sewage system, including a waste water treatment plant, have been installed, along with a new fire-hydrant system.
The work to build the modern terminal took nearly two years and people from 41 nations were involved in the design and construction works. The construction and project management was supported by one of the world’s leading private airport managers HOCHTIEF AirPort and was undertaken to British Standards by the Albanian contractor Trema Engineering 2 SHPK. Design review and construction supervision was carried out by the German company DIWI Consult International GmbH.
Since 23 April 2005, overall responsibility for the development, operation and management of Tirana International Airport has been in the hands of Tirana International Airport SHPK (TIA), an Albanian company under German-American ownership. The shareholders are HOCHTIEF AirPort, DEG Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft and the Albanian-American Enterprise Fund. Backed by the shareholders’ expertise in airport management and financing, TIA has set itself the goal of expanding the airport and setting new standards of comfort, convenience and service. By the end of 2007, more than EUR 50 million will have been invested in the airport. Construction works for a new passenger terminal, a new cargo terminal and a new access road will be completed by March 2007.