100 million Euros for Priština

Waiting for a new terminal
The Government of Kosovo is close to awarding a company to manage and run Priština International Airport for the next 20 years in return for a 100 million Euro investment into the airport which would see it modernised and expanded. This is the first PPP (Public Private Project) to be carried out in Kosovo. According to local authorities, the selection process should be transparent. The 100 million Euro investment should include the construction of a new terminal.

Three of the selected bidders are strong international consortiums. The first competitor is the Turkish-German consortium Fraport / ICTAS that manage the Antalya Airport in Turkey. The Fraport Company manages Frankfurt International Airport and together with other companies manages 10 other airports. The second bidders are the Turkish-French consortium Limak / Airport de Lyon. The Limak Company manages Sabiha Gökçen Airport in Istanbul. The third bidder for the concession of Priština Airport is the international consortium Bouyges Batiment- Egis- PAIC.

Priština Airport handled 1.191.978 passengers in 2009 and had a 11 million Euro profit

Comments

  1. Anonymous20:22

    GOOD FOR PRISTINA!

    POZZ FROM BOSNIAN BROTHERS!

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  2. Great news for Pristina and Kosovo :)

    Are there any news regarding Sarajevo airport's expansion and development?

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  3. Shum suksesi per Aeroporti i Prishtines.

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  4. PRN keeps expanding and the has overtaken airports such as Split and Dubrovnik in 2009 on PAX numbers. It's the 3rd largest airport in ex-YU after Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana, which is quite an achievement.

    EasyJet has officially confirmed that it is flying to Prishtina from Geneva and Basel. It will be a great sight to see easyJet orange colours at PRN twice weekly. It might, just might, encourage others to fly there too.

    If PRN management are to be believed Czech Airlines are seriosly considering the option of linking PRG and PRN.

    Personally, I will be happiest when I see Lufthansa's yellow and blue livery at PRN. To me that will signal a new era for the airport. If anyone can enlighted me why LH does not fly more to ex-YU I would very much appreciate the explanation.

    Finally, to the anonymous who provoked and started the political angle I have only this to say to you: if you run an airline and want to fly to PRN, go to the Serbian civil aviation authorities and see how far you will get.

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  5. Apologies, I meanto to say 4th largest after BEG, ZAG and LJU. Typos.

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  6. ANONYMOUS12:24

    @ Visit Kosovo:

    ALL airlines that are interested in flying to Pristina do so for only ONE reason: the large number of people flying to/from Pristina and the surrounding area who work for the various UN/foreign government agencies. These are fantastic sources of revenues as they are essentially 'business' passengers - they don't care how much the flights cost as they're not paying for them themselves, and as Pristina is such a sh!thole, they can't wait to get out of there at the earliest opportunity.
    That's why there's a vibrant air traffic market there. It's the same reason airlines are lining up to resume flights to Baghdad.

    Sorry.

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  7. @anonymous

    Grow up man. Lets keep this an aviation blog. The fact of the matter is that the Kosovar Civil Aviation Authority (http://www.caa-ks.org/) is responsible for the civil aviation in Kosovo and PRN falls within Kosovo. There are more than a dozen scheduled airlines that fly to PRN and they get their licenses from the Kosovar CAA. None of these airlines ask either UN or Serbian CAA for permission to fly to PRN. Whether it's functioning or not, let the figures do the talking:

    Year 2000: 396,717 PAX
    Year 2001: 403,408 PAX
    Year 2002: 844,098 PAX
    Year 2003: 835,036 PAX
    Year 2004: 910,797 PAX
    Year 2005: 930,346 PAX
    Year 2006: 882,731 PAX
    Year 2007: 990,259 PAX
    Year 2008: 1,130,639 PAX
    Year 2009: 1,191,978 PAX

    In the last 10 years there has been exactly a 300% increase in PAX figures. Hmm... you call this "obvious taht you can't function." By the way, I don't know why you addressed this to me. I am not the Kosovar CAA, I have nothing to do with it.

    There is no benefit in having a discussion with you. So, this will be my last post regarding non-aviation issues. You can write all you like.

    To all others: Pozdrav!

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  8. @anonymous_2

    Who cares why people fly to a destination? What's the point of saying a meaningless 'sorry' at the end if the entire post is filled with hate and bigotry.

    If your argument were true, which it isn't, then why don't destinations like Sarajavo have over 1 million pax/year (and growing)? I mention (my dear) Sarajevo because there is just as big a presence of the international community there as it is in Prishtina. The international presence in Prishtina has significantly reduced in the last 4-5 years, whereas the number of international pax has gone up. No one is forcing anyone, i.e. workers of various UN/foreign government agencies, to travel to Prishtina. If they hate it so much there then they should quit their jobs bloody failures and move to another place or stay where they are.

    So, in conclusion, eat your heart out. While in most of ex-YU pax numbers went down in PRN they went up. Someone is doing something right over there. Have the courage to at least recognise that.

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  9. ANONYMOUS16:09

    ^
    Hate and bigotry? Calm down. I'm not from the region, and I work in the industry (including advising one of the consortiums on the Pristina PPP) - so I think I know what I'm talking about.

    Pristina and the surrounding region has a vast number of foreign NGO/UN types, several times more than Sarajevo does. PLUS - as I said, the view of everyone foreign who is working in the Pristina area is that it's not a nice place to be. Sarajevo is different. People vote with their feet and they'd rather be flown back to wherever in western Europe they live than stay for the weekend.

    As for what the airlines think about operating into/out of Pristina - I think a big NO COMMENT will be sufficient. Have they learned to invoice yet for airport charges or are they still demanding credit card payments from pilots?

    Third world. Joke.

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  10. @ visit kosovo

    nuk je Kosova shtet e njohen...mijera Kosovare kane passaporta Serbe...me shum?

    Serbian aviation authorities do have some say on flights to and from PRN, with such flights refused entry into Serbian airspace, and airlines have previously been rejected rights to BEG for flying to PRN as seen with JP prior to the open skies agreement. Its a shame that PRN isnt under full Serbian control, would at least mean that all people in KS would have visa liberation...flight times would for sure be shorter ;)

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  11. @anonymous_2

    Just because you're not from the region it does not mean your post was not hateful and just because you're advising one of the consortiums it does not mean you're a good adviser and know what you're talking about. Anyhow, what are you advising on?

    For your claims to be taken seriously one would expect to see some figures. First, how many more UN/NGO staff work in Kosovo than in Bosnia? Second, what is the percentage of non-Kosovars (or better UN/NGO staff) pax through PRN?

    The reason why I ask these questions is because I have been to both Kosovo and Bosnia many times and I did not notice any significant different in the so-called international presence. And, certainly all my flights to and from PRN had a very high percentage of Kosovars on board and I have flown to Tirana, Zagreb, Podgorica, Ljubljana, Vienna, London, Budapest and Istanbul.

    As far as the airport charges are concerned, I don't care whether airlines pay by credit cards or not. The important thing is that the airport authorities run things well enough (and make sure they get paid due monies) and the traffic figures show beyond doubt that they're doing something right. If not, Skopje Airport would be booming.

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  12. Miredita JATBEGMEL,

    I'm sure lots of Kosovars have Serbian passports, but I don't know the figures. In any case, I am not arguing here wether Kosovo is or is not independent. What I am arguing is that the Kosovar CAA runs the aviation business in Kosovo and Serbia has no say.

    Your statement in fact proved my point. Serbian authorities can only prevent airlines flying over *Serbia* and have no control over aviation in Kosovo. They might think that they do, but they don't. They cannot prevent an airline from flying to PRN. None of the airlines currently operating at PRN got their licenses to serve the airport by Serbian CAA.

    As far as "[i]ts a shame that PRN isnt under full Serbian control" is concerned, well Serbian authorities have absolutely no control over PRN so this statement is just false.

    In any case, I wish you and BEG well.

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  13. @ Visit Kosovo

    pershendetje Visit Kosovo :)

    the figures of amounts of Serbian passports handed to Albanians from Kosovo go into the tens of thousands with many paying €4.000 in registering an address in Central Serbia to be able to benifit from our visa liberation. You have some articles on it published by Blic and Telegrafi :)

    I doubt the "Kosovar CAA" has full control themselves and that it is much runned by EULEX and foreign forces in Kosovo.

    nga je ti?

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  14. @ JATBEGMEL

    Pozdrav, jam nga Prishtina. Dardania te posteri i Bill Clintonit. Ti a je nga Prishtina?

    Anyways, there really is no benefit in discussing non-aviation topics. I just wish everyone well as long as they don't set out to offend.

    Paqe - Mir - Peace!

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  15. Geronimo18:24

    Jat should fly to pristina,bizniz je bizniz,at least 2daily flights

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  16. As said before this is not the place for insulting others. Some just don’t seem to learn.

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  17. @ Visit Kosovo

    nena ime esht nga Prishtin. E di ku esht Dardania, esht pran Univerzitet te Prishtines? Une kam linduar n'Australi dhe sot i jetojn n'Beogradi :)

    Tung. Paqe.

    @ Geranimo

    JAT has been unable to recieve landing rights to PRN from UNMIK authorities. In the JAT summer 1992 timetable btw just before the sanctions on SFR Yugoslavia, new routes were added, with PRN-ZRH flying 1 p/w. BEG-PRN was 1 p/w (ive heard of 2 p/w):

    JU772 BEG 1125 PRN 1205 D93 Sat

    I think a few times a week (5 p/w??) with ATR72's could do well, at least better than BNX for certain!

    How is OU doing on their ZAG-PRN flights btw?

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  18. ^^
    @anonymous
    I can find thousands of commentators -- as the title itself says 'comment is free' -- who would say the same about most countries in the world.

    @JATBEGMEL
    Po fol shume mire shqip. Urime! Te takohemi per kafe kur te vjen ne Prishtine? Pershendetje familjes.

    @all aviators
    Here's a little treat that you don't get to witness quite often. See the bottom of the image, highlighted.

    http://www.visitkosovo.com/images/AABBEGPRN.PNG

    Enjoy!

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  19. @ Visit Kosovo

    Falaminderit shum :) flas vetem pak shqip, por jam ende i mesuar :) nuk mund te i thon jo per kafe :) the same if you come to Belgrade. Pershendetje per ty dhe familjes.

    ...dhe shum mire per link :)

    @ anonymous

    Your comment has nothing to do with Pristina Airport neihter aviation in general. This isnt a place for politics.

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  20. Anonymous18:19

    We all know that the only reason Belgrade airport stopped its protectioninst policies for JAT was because of competition from Zagreb and Pristina. Pristina was able to get several low-cost airlines and is connected to the vast majority of the major European capitals thus attracting considerable air traffic from neighboring countries like Serbia. This reflects the market economy in the region and everyone in Belgrade who desires to fly cheaper to the rest of Europe should thank Pristina airport for getting Belgrade to smell the competition and welcome low-cost carriers.

    And the other major factor that has played into the growth of Pristina airport (greater than the desire of wealthy "business-class" Westerners to run back to their families on the weekend after having their share of the poor prostitutes smuggled from Asia in Pristina) is that it doesn't have to protect a corrupt and destitute national carrier like Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Slovenia have to. This has allowed the airport to serve the people with affordable connection to the rest of Europe rather than a few incompetent party heads that were qualified based on their airplane drawings in grade school.

    In regards to Sarajevo airport, it has some of the largest landing fees on airlines in the entire region, hence its lack of significant passenger growth or the ability to attract low-cost airlines. People of Sarajevo should thank the management of Sarajevo airport for having flights to the city as some of the most expensive in the region, while the airport management is praised for the profit margins it maintains.

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