When one of the largest Albanian companies, the Kastrati Group, took over the airport in Tirana at the end of 2020, they announced an investment of 100 million euros over the next 20 years and a plan to transport nine million passengers by 2024. Just two years later, the company increased the planned investment by 40% to a total of 140 million euros and has already invested 60 million euros. When it comes to the number of passengers, that plan has also been exceeded. According to all calculations, the airport in Tirana will transport 10 million passengers by the end of the year, which means that it will achieve a better result than the airport in Belgrade, which until now was the most important airport in the region.
The Chief Operating Officer of Tirana Airport, Piervittorio Farabbi, says that one of the reasons why Tirana Airport has become the busiest and most desirable airport in the region is the synergy between all actors in Albania’s aviation industry: the Government, the Civil Aviation Agency, Alp Control, which provides traffic control services in the tower, and of course Kastrati Group, which became the sole owner in 2020.
“When the Kastrati Group took ownership of the airport, together with other actors, the conditions for growth were created. For example, the government reduced the boarding fee, which was 10 euros, to one euro, which opened up opportunities to create relationships with companies such as Wizz Air first, and then Ryanair.” explains Farabi.
Not only did these companies offer a huge number of airlines, but they also started to create a base at the airport in Tirana. To begin with, it was done by Viz er, which currently has a base of 13 planes, and there are plans to increase that number. When it comes to Rajaner, he doesn’t have a base yet, but he does about 80% of the traffic.
“The rest is carried out by traditional carriers such as Lufthansa, Iberia, British Airways, ETA, Air Serbia and some carriers from the Gulf region. We expect that, sooner or later, Ryanair will make a decision to establish a base here, which will complement the Viz era base, as well as the base of Ee Albania (Air Albania), which is the national carrier of Albania,” says Farabi.
What is one of the characteristics of Tirana airport is the balanced division between low-cost carriers that usually operate direct flights and national airlines, which offer the possibility of connecting flights.
“We also have a fairly good connection with all major hubs in Europe, starting with Istanbul, then Belgrade, Warsaw with LOT. In Germany we have Munich and Frankfurt with Lufthansa, Vienna with Austrian Airlines, Madrid with Iberia, London Heathrow with British Airways, ESA, Fiumicino. So using these features you can travel anywhere in the world. Not only that, but because we have a connection with Dubai through FlyDubai, you can also use Emirates from the airport in Dubai, for example,” continues the airport director.
The number of those who choose the airport in Tirana is growing rapidly from year to year. By mid-September, they transported about 8 million passengers. The plan is to reach 10 million by the end of the year.
“Last year we had 7.2 million. In 2019, we had 3.3 million, which means that we are now recording a growth of 200% compared to 2019 and 55% compared to last year. To give you an idea, with 8 million passengers, we not only exceeded the number of passengers from last year, but also the number of passengers in Belgrade, which had around 8 million passengers last year. Now we plan to exceed 10 million passengers by the end of this year, which will make us not only the fastest growing airport in Europe, but also the largest in the Western Balkans,” says Farabi.
Before the Kastrati Group took over the airport in Tirana, it was roughly the size of the airport in Podgorica. Two years later, that space looks completely different.
“We are currently building seven new aircraft stands. We’ve added six in the meantime. We have finished work on the new taxiway called the Foxtrot. We have expanded the airport, but we are still expanding it, our goal is 40,000 square meters, with the option of even more, so that it could have a capacity of 14-15 million passengers a year when everything is finished,” says Farabi.
There are travelers from all over Europe, but the biggest market is between Italy and Albania, because there are many Albanians there. In the beginning, most of the traffic in Tirana was aimed at VFR traffic, i.e. visiting friends and relatives.
“Now this is complemented by markets in Germany and the UK, but there is an increasing number of flights to the Gulf. We have flights during the summer to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah, Bahrain, Kuwait City. Also, there is increasing interest from the north of Europe. Air Baltic has already announced that they will expand the service they operated this year from Riga to Tallinn and are planning further expansion. This year we added Iberia from Madrid, Transavia from Amsterdam, which is part of the Air France KLM group. Of course, the plan is to use this development to expand the runway and enable transatlantic flights directly to North America at some point. We would like to explore the possibility of direct flights from Tirana to, say, New York, Boston or Toronto,” says Farabi.
When asked how many Montenegrin citizens use the airport in Tirana, Farabi replies that the data is recorded by the border police, not them, but that according to their estimates, around 70,000 Montenegrins used the airport in both directions.
“We expect that number to reach 150,000-180,000 by the end of the year. Imagine that we expect around 400,000 passengers from Kosovo. We even have travelers from the north of Greece. So, this is not only an airport for Albania, but for the entire Western Balkans, if you will,” he states.
Farabi points out that there are other privatized airports in the Balkans, but that when it comes to the airport in Tirana, one fact plays a key role – the owner is a domestic company.
“For example, Belgrade is run by Vinci, an American company. Pristina is run by LIMAC, an American-French company. LIMAC is the company that also manages the airport in Pristina. Skopje is run by the TAV company, which is part of the Aéroports de Paris Group. Tirana is the only privatized airport in the Balkans managed by a company from the Western Balkans, Kastrati Group. This allows us to invest the resources that you see, converted into cement, asphalt, windows, infrastructure, taxiway asphalt, the airplane hangar that we build. Because there is an interest, not only as a business, but also as part of this community of the Western Balkans. That is why the story of Tirana is a success story”, concludes Farabi.
By the way, more than 1,300 people are currently employed at the airport together with its branches. The company has a total of nearly three thousand people.
Taken from Forbes Montenegro
(Kastrati Group)
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Source: www.vijesti.me
