Construction of the airport of Vlora/ Balluku: We will be ready in the promised time

2024-06-19 18:55:00, Aktualitet CNA

Construction of the airport of Vlora/ Balluku: We will be ready in the promised

The Deputy Prime Minister, at the same time the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Belinda Balluku, accompanied by the director of Civil Aviation, Maksim Ethemaj, were at the construction site of the international airport of Vlora, where they closely followed the progress of the works in this project.

They announced that they are working at a fast pace, where in addition to the construction of the airport runway, all the airport infrastructure that is part of the project is being built in parallel.

So far, more than 40% of the physical works have been completed. Director Ethemaj informed that the project, as it was predicted, is being developed in several stages.

"The airport itself is planned to be developed in three phases. This is the first phase of the development, which will then be accompanied, based on the number of passengers, in the other phases. What is seen is also accompanied by a coordination process between the parties. Currently, the Directorate of Civil Aviation, the airport, Customs and the Police have started work on determining the requirements, the places where they will be allocated in order to calculate the necessary staff. The works are going very well", said Ethemaj.

On the other hand, Balluku said that the physical works will be completed at the end of this year, as predicted, to allow time for the certification and approval processes of this airport.

"The phases are defined, what will happen in each phase, since such a large civil aviation unit, where there are several components inside, is not built all in the first phase. As it is also planned in the feasibility study, there are several stages to advance with the entire airport construction process until the final realization of all the volumes of work that this airport will have. For this reason, we are also prepared according to a calendar and phases that we will launch one by one, but for the first phase, which will be the phase of opening operations and launching some of the sectors, we are fully ready" , said Balluku.

The airport will be developed in three sectors, civil aviation, aircraft maintenance, a real cargo, which Albania lacks so far. The Minister of Infrastructure and Energy placed the emphasis on respecting the deadlines, bringing to attention the fact that our country already has the necessary experience to finalize the entire process.

"We really have in our ranks good experts in the field who already know the process. We did a test with the Kukes airport process and we got it done on time and on time, so now our teams are experienced teams, with very good contacts with international partners and on the other hand they have also passed a powerful test which was the certification of Kukës. So now let's say this is not a test, this is a guaranteed success, it is enough that we stick to the deadlines, so I insist on the part of the deadlines", underlined Balluku.

The international airport of Vlora will be of category 4E, with a runway with a length of 3.2 kilometers enabling also transoceanic flights./ CNA