Tirana International Airport continues its growing path in 2008

TIRANA, July 30 – Tirana International Airport (TIA) reported Wednesday it had registered 540,585 passengers in the first half of the year 2008, an increase of 19 per cent compared with the same period of the previous year.
There was also an increase in the number of the air traffic movements: compared with the first half 2007 the number of flights at TIA has been bigger by 10 percent.
During the first six months of 2008 there were added names to the list of the airlines that use TIA like Aegean Airlines, or new services like the economic, frequent flights towards Prishtina, offered by Belle Air.
Cargo service has seen a decrease due to reduction of charter flights.
“After the achievement of more than 1 million passengers in the year 2007, there has again been an impressive passenger growth of approximately 19 per cent during the first six months of this year, which was combined with a growth of ten per cent in air traffic movements. And we are going beyond these figures. We will invest close to 20 million EUR by September 2009 in extending the Airport in order to respond to this growth; or to put it another way, to make Tirana International Airport fit for the future and to host 1.5 million passengers”, – said TIA’s CEO Andrea Gebbeken.
The airlines that have had the largest number of passengers during this period have been Belleair (31.5%), Alitalia (19.4%), Albanian Airlines (10.7%), Austrian Airlines (8.8%) and Turkish Airlines (6.5%). Actually 13 airlines offer their services at TIA connecting Tirana with 33 different destinations.
Last week TIA launched the beginning of the works for its further modernization with a second terminal adding 40% of the actual size of the surface of the airport and substantially increasing the operating capacity of the airport.
The works will end in September 2009 and will add approximately 5,000 mҠto the passengers’ terminal. (Tirana Times Staff)