Albania’s government wants to end Tirana International Airport’s exclusive right to international flights, as officials gear up for talks with the company that runs the airport under concession.
By Tirana Times Staff
Albania’s government has aimed for a long time to end the exclusive right to international flights Tirana International Airport has enjoyed since its concession agreement. The government now wants to talk with the company that runs the airport to find a solution.
Ministry of Transport officials said this week they will start negotiations with Tirana Airport Partners, the company that operates the airport under concession, to allow international flights to go in and out of the brand new Kukes Airport in northern Albania and to be allowed out of the planed airport in Saranda.
Albania’s government wants to end Tirana International Airport’s exclusive right to international flights one way or another, but it would rather allow Tirana Airport Partners to invest in the new airport at Saranda, officials indicated in reports in several Albanian daily newspapers.
Transport Minister Sokol Olldashi said this week that negotiations will start this month for Kukes Airport as well as the Saranda Airports, which the government wants to build at the country’s southern tip.
Kukes Airport, for which investors spent $22 million, is ready to start function today, if only there was an agreement reached. The airport is under the administration of the Albanian government.
One of the government’s plans is to offer Tirana Airport Partners the right to build and operate the airport in Saranda, officials said.
It’s yet unknown how Tirana Airport Partners, a German-U.S. consortium will react. They made the condition of international exclusivity a deal breaker when they negotiated the contract several years ago.
And business has been booming at TIA, with more than one million passengers served during the first nine months of 2009, the number of passengers is up 9 percent since last year.
Official figures released in late October Tirana International Airport show that 1,063,393 passengers travelled through the airport in the first nine months of the year, a 9 percent increase on the same period last year.
The airport also recorded 15,260 air traffic movements (ATMs) and handled 1,217 tons of cargo. These figures represent an increase in ATMs of 4.5 percent, while cargo figures showed a decrease, of 16 percent.
Despite the challenging climate for businesses around the world, TIA continues to release positive results, while completing at the same time the Phase B extension, in September 2009, an investment of EUR 20 million aiming at accommodating 1.8 million passengers per year.
During the first nine months of 2009, the airlines carrying most passengers to and from Tirana were Belleair (42.1 percent), Alitalia (13.5 percent), Albanian Airlines (8.9 percent), Austrian Airlines (6.0 percent) and Turkish Airlines (5.3 percent). Currently, 12 airlines fly in to and out of TIA, connecting directly the Albanian capital city with 30 destinations.
