Tender on the Airport of Prishtina

A tender will be organized in Kosovo with the view of providing the airport of Prishtina, the only international airport of the country, with a company capable of giving the airport a better standing and a better financial capacity while handling food service, sales of duty free and tourist items and other concession needs.
Tirana, the capital of Albania, has proceeded the same way in order to improve and to increase capacity of Albania’s most important international airport. On the one hand, the Tirana International Airport consortium has largely improved the services, the standing and the capacity of the airport that serves the capital of the country. On the other hand, however, since the consortium has been awarded exclusivity over the whole of Albania for a 20 year period the international airport of Kuk쳬 which has been completed, has not been put to use, and other international airports in southern coastal towns which could welcome tourists from the western world cannot be planned without getting out of the exclusivity clause accorded to the concession management firm.
While it is unclear whether the tender to be organized at the Prishtina International Airport will include any exclusivity clause or not, what is certain at this stage is that the authorities in Prishtina have been sensible to the quality of bidding companies. The Ministry of Transports and Post-Telecommunications of Kosovo (Ministria e Transportit dhe Post뮔elekomunikacioneve, MTPT) plans to exclude from participation in the tender any companies operating within 400 kilometers from Sllatina, location for the International Airport of Prishtina. This is done in order to avoid neglect of any of the managed airports within this distance and will effectively leave out of the tender the big Turkish company “TAV”, operating at Shkup (Skoplje) and the German “Hochtief” consortium, operating at Rinas in Albania, reported Korrieri (7.08.2009). Any such neglect is susceptible because of the geographical closeness of the airports of Prishtina, Shhkup and Tirana.
Official voices from the MTPT say that the concession of the Prishtina International Airport will last for 20 years, during which period the concession management company should invest 100 million Euros on the development of the airport. Among required developments is quoted a new terminal with a capacity of 1.5 million passengers [a year], with parking places and a water recycling unit.
The technical recommendations for the tendering were compiled by the Irish company “Inova”.