TAV Airports Holding to Operate Airports in Macedonia

TAV Airports Holding’s offer to operate Alexander the Great airport and St Paul the Apostle International Airport for the next twenty years as well as to build and operate Shtip’s  New Cargo Airlines was announced as the winning bid by the Macedonian government.
 
The operations contracts were finalized on September 24th in Macedonia. The President & CEO of TAV Airports Holding, M. Sani Şener, the Macedonian Minister of Transportation and Communications Mile Janakieski, and various other Macedonian government officials were present.
 
M. Sani Şener, the CEO of TAV Airports Holding, which in addition to becoming a regional brand in airport management has also become a global company due to its business character, said, “We are very happy to be operating an airport in Europe and that we have been successful in this project that we have been working towards for a very long time. The Macedonian contract also carries the mission to open the door to Europe for TAV Airports Holding, a company that already operates airports in the Middle East, the Caucasus, and North Africa. Another important point for us is that along with the airport operations in Macedonia we have reached our aim of ‘10 Airports in 10 Years’ in only eight years. We are proud to have reached our goals ahead of schedule.”

Şener stated that the operation of airports in Macedonia will serve to further open TAV Airports operations into Europe. Şener said, “With our projects in Macedonia, which holds a very strategic place in both the world and politics and with which we have shared a 500 year common past, we have said, “Hello, Rumelia*” We have been very successful in this project, which we have worked towards for a very long time. With this project TAV Airports has clinched its place in the international arena, both in the financial and the aviation field.”

TAV Airports Holding was the only company, among such global giants as Hochtief (Germany), Egis – Kaupthing Vienna (Austria), and Singer & Friedlander (French – British partnership), which had all passed the first phase of the bidding, to have made it to the final phase and to have been able to meet all of the criteria.

In 2007, 680 thousand passengers used Alexander the Great airport in the capital city of Skopje and St Paul the Apostle International Airport in Ohrid. TAV Airports aims to increase both the passenger and the airline numbers at both of these airports after taking over operations. At the same time it is foreseen that a restructuring will take place that also includes the modernization of the technical infrastructure.

TAV Airport Holding will operate Alexander the Great and St Paul the Apostle International Airport for 20 years. The Shtip Cargo Airport construction is expected to be finished in the second half of 2011.

TAV Airports, an international player in the field of airports management in the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucus, operates Istanbul Ataturk, Ankara Esenboga Domestic and International Terminals and Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport in Turkey; its overseas operations include Georgia Tbilisi Airport and Batumi Airport and Monastir Habib Bourguiba Airport in Tunisia. TAV Airports also holds the rights to operate Antalya Gazipaşa Airport and Enfidha Zine Abidine Ben Ali International Airport in Tunisia.

CAIRO AIRPORT OPENS
Cairo Airport’s new third terminal, constructed by Turkish TAV Airports Holding, was opened by Egyptian President Hüsnü Mübarek and Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmet Nazif in last December.
Cairo International Airport is one of the major airports in Egypt and the primary hub for the national carrier Egypt Air. Cairo International is known as the second busiest in Africa after Johannesburg International in South Africa. Cairo handled nearly 10.8 million passengers in 2006 and ten million passengers in 2007 and it is becoming busier and busier. The airport has the potential to be a major hub with its positioning between Africa, the Middle East and Europe. (* Rumelia is the part of the Ottoman Empire which was in Europe.)