Investigation/Scandal and orchestrated attack on "Air Albania"

"Turkish Airlines", one of the largest and most prestigious airlines in the world, is facing several consecutive scandals related to "Air Albania", its "daughter" in Albania.

Why do we say scandals?

We say scandals, because we as CNA, after simply following the steps that some media were taking against "Air Albania", understood who was behind the attacks and whether what was being reported on some peripheral portals was true or pseudo-scandals. Was the company harming itself? Did its shareholders simply bankrupt it? There were no more funds or what had happened? These were written as attacks or actions to cover up real scandals.

What did we do?

After the news about the company's huge debts and the leakage of balance sheets, we asked the Central Bank, but the balance sheets were not there and we sent an e-mail to "Turkish Airlines", but the company remained silent. The auditors, too. And we received no response from there. Two e-mails, no response regarding the leakage of "Air Albania" balance sheets, when they did not exist in the Central Bank. The silence from the companies was deafening, but the reaction came.

We, not without reason, also sent an email to the "Big Four Ernst & Young (EY)" regarding the company's balance sheets and their audit. We sent an email there as well, but again silence.

Email sent by CNA

We issued a court decision, which showed and revealed an abuse, perhaps a major theft of millions of euros, related to catering, where according to the data, 120 people a day traveled in "business class" with "Air Albania". An entire plan a day "business class". Unbelievable! They were silent again.

After an article in CNA, other articles were published against "Air Albania". It was said that it had not paid the aircraft leases. A "revelation" coming from Switzerland.

We wrote to the company where "Air Albania" had leased planes, but they told us by e-mail "NO COMMENT".

Each e-mail had questions directed at what was written to understand the truth, but everyone was silent, we only received one comment.

Is silence approval?! So, approval of the truth that arose from our questions and not from the articles that seemed to be shooting "Air Albania" in pairs to make noise and hide the truth.

"Turkish Airlines" is silent, the scandals will not stop

"Turkish Airlines" is one of the world's major companies that has many "daughters", somewhere in partnership with Germany, somewhere in partnership with the Albanian state, but unlike the others, "Air Albania" is being hit and hit. It was abused, misused by managers, executives, former executives, who are under the shelter of "Turkish Airlines". So, it was "Turkish Airlines" itself that managed the company in Albania since its founding and the balance sheets kept getting heavier. The balance sheets of a company that had been promised that it would have 7 aircraft, but could not even complete two, were getting heavier.

Someone at Turkish Airlines has other intentions and the silence speaks for itself.

Maybe for them, "Air Albania" and its losses or bankruptcy are nothing, but those planes carry the Albanian flag on their tails. Those planes, as we have written and repeated, carry the name "Air Albania" on their bodies.

Someone doesn't like the beautiful tail with the Albanian flag.

Maybe they want to bankrupt it, maybe they want to buy it, but one thing is true: for years and years, we have discovered that theft and abuse have taken place at "Air Albania", which came to light through a court decision. Maybe there are others.

"Air Albania", a cash cow

Leaders who may have taken advantage and abused even when they were not in office. They saw "Air Albania" as a cow to be milked. And after they have milked it well and truly, they want to kill it, slaughter it for meat, to eat it on the table.

That seems to be the goal. Nothing more than that.

But will certain individuals, about whom "Turkish Airlines" is silent, be able to achieve this goal?

"Air Albania" is the Albanian flag in the sky

Maybe we don't care as media, but we won't stop until the day we get answers about the truth. We don't care about the funds of "Turkish Airlines" at all. Not at all. Not even who the Albanian shareholders are. We care about what we have emphasized: the Albanian flag in the skies of Europe, why not even further. Because we were told that there would be 7 planes, with which Albanians would fly around Europe, to London, Frankfurt, Paris, Rome, Milan.

They now fly only to the latter and to Istanbul. Nowhere else. Why do "low cost" companies have to use Albanian skies and our airports, when we have and should have our own airlines? Why don't "Turkish Airlines" or individuals within it want "Air Albania" to exist? Why do they want to destroy it, after they stole it and took it for granted? Is it possible that "Turkish Airlines" is keeping quiet because it knows that there is theft there? Or is it that someone is lying, manipulating and hiding the right information, selling false or half-truthful news to the media in Albania and billing the Albanian company, when in fact the responsibility lies in Turkey with "Turkish Airlines"? What is being hidden?

From the silence of "Turkish Airlines", we can say that it is perhaps an approving silence for what we have written./CNA

Illustrative photo

Tirana/Istanbul- The story of the expansion of the Air Albania fleet was supposed to be a story of pride and independence.

But instead, it has become a typical manual on how a giant partner manages to suffocate a smaller company by making it completely dependent.

And in this case, the finger points in only one direction: "Turkish Airlines" is the architect of the "Air Albania" crisis.

False promise

In 2023, Air Albania announced the arrival of two Airbus A320s leased from GA Telesis in Miami. Tirana celebrated, seeing this as the first real step towards stepping out of the shadow of Turkish Airlines.

But, behind the scenes, the Turkish company played a different game: at the same time, it returned the two working planes, ZABEL and ZABBC, that were flying in the colors of "Air Albania".

One of them even now proudly bears the registration TC-JPZ under the Turkish Airlines flag. Expansion? No, it was simply a calculated change to keep Air Albania dependent and weak.

Fleet "crippled" on purpose

Just a few months later, one of the new Airbuses ? ZA-MMK ? was grounded in Istanbul due to engine problems. It was July 2024, at the height of the summer season. And today, more than a year later, the plane remains parked ? a monument to incompetence and, according to many, sabotage.

The question is: who accepted an aircraft with such problems? Who signed the documents?

The answer is clear ? Turkish Airlines. It oversaw it, it allowed it, and it has the technical power to return it to service. But it has chosen not to.

Payment for a ghost plane

Meanwhile, reliable sources say that Air Albania continues to pay rent for the stranded plane. So, the Albanian company is paying money for a plane that is "dead" on the runway, while Turkish Airlines, with a fleet of hundreds of planes and its own engine overhaul center, stands by as a spectator.

The reason? Control.

To financially strangle "Air Albania", keep it powerless and ensure that it never escapes the grip of Istanbul.

Traces in the courts

The game also extends to the courtrooms. In London, court proceedings have revealed that Turkish Airlines is directly linked to GA Telesis' lease contracts, perhaps even as a guarantor. If this is proven, it confirms early suspicions: Air Albania is not an independent company, but a puppet commanded by Istanbul. To this end, we addressed the plaintiff company with these questions:

1. Who found your proposed aircraft for "Air Albania"?

2. Who performed the technical acceptance?

3. Is Turkish Airlines a guarantor for the lease contract?

4. Why hasn't ZA-MMK been flying since last summer?

5. Is Air Albania holding your planes by force? If not, why does the news say so?

6. Did you notify Turkish Airlines about the situation and did they react as guarantors?

Questions were sent in English.

The answer was clear. "No comment!"

The silence that kills

Albanian shareholders, who should have defended the national flag, what was our pride yesterday, chose silence. A silence that is eerily similar to the case of "Air Bosnia", where the inflated debts under the guise of a "partnership" led the company to collapse. History seems ready to repeat itself, this time in Tirana.

The bitter truth

This is no coincidence. Nor is it a series of unfortunate incidents.

The facts ? the returned planes, the grounded planes, the silence of shareholders, the traces in the courts ? all point to a premeditated strategy by Turkish Airlines.

The goal is simple: to keep the company with the Albanian flag small, dependent and powerless.

The questions that remain are no longer about engines or bills. They are about responsibility.

Until when will Albania allow its national flag carrier to be used in this game?

And who will have the courage to openly say what the facts already show: the real culprit is..../ CNA

Illustrative photo

In several consecutive articles, CNA has brought investigative materials that are trying to shed light on the fate of "Air Albania" and who led the company into a difficult financial situation. 

After the issue of balance sheets that are not declared to the Central Bank but appear in the media, CNA is bringing up another issue.

Everything came out of the media news where the seizure by the IBN company against "Air Albania" was reported (according to the decision of Appeal No. 643 (30-2025-3979), dated 13.05.2025 - General Jurisdiction, and the decision of the Supreme Court that overturned this seizure).

This latest decision by the Supreme Court shows Air Albania's complaint for excessive billing, accepted by CEO Sinan Dilek.

This overbilling is part of the loss presented in the balance sheet declared by Turkish Airlines for "Air Albania", material that was also published in the media.

The overbilling, which amounts to millions of euros, represents part of the loss that catering company IBN had previously reported.

Supreme Court decision:

? Suspension of the execution of the Appeal decision until the appeal is reviewed.

? Lifting of the seizure measure imposed on the bank accounts and shares of ?Air Albania? sh.pk by the Private Executor's Office ?QEVA? sh.pk (letters 591/10, 591/11, 592/9, 592/10, 593/9, 597/6, dated 19.05.2025).

But Supreme Court documents show that in just one year, 44,000 passengers were billed only for business class, the first section of the plane where extra service is provided.

Can Air Albania have 44,000 business passengers in a year? With such figures, the company should be excelling in revenue and not having such losses. How is this possible?

These figures found in the court decision documents speak of a painful truth that could border on a major scandal.

Let's do a simple calculation. An airplane has only 8 business class seats on average and they are often half empty? (Not everyone can travel in business class).

With simple mathematics it tells us the truth.

44 thousand business passengers per year, divided by 365 days (with a maximum of 2 "Air Albania" aircraft in the fleet), comes out to 120 business passengers per day.

Taking the maximum number of official flights per day, the figure is that for each "Air Albania" flight there would be 20 VIP passengers.

Each flight carries 20 business passengers, this figure is two and a half times greater than the aircraft's capacity of 8 people maximum per flight.

So the court's decision shows us the truth about Air Albania's losses, which are essentially millions and millions of euros in overbilling.

Could there be another reason that Sinan Dilek, former CEO of "Air Albania", did not see the facts but may have falsified the figures in collaboration with the company that provided the service?

CNA will further deepen its investigation by publishing illegal payments outside the CEO's authorization, the mismatch of agency accounts, and other benefits.

All of this is a wake-up call for Albanian shareholders who must demand their rights immediately.

After the truth about the overbilling that deepened the losses was revealed once and for all by the Supreme Court./ CNA

Through an investigation that arose immediately after the publication of some speculative news, or media abuses committed against "Air Albania", CNA was able to obtain data that revealed the truth about the company's balance sheets.

These balances were not declared to the Central Bank, but they had been leaked to the media.

CNA contacted Air Albania's management in Tirana by e-mail, as well as the main shareholder, Turkish Airlines.

We published a complete material, although our questions to "Turkish Airlines" have not yet been answered.

Meanwhile, the issue still remains open without full clarification and full of smoke.

Continuing our investigation into the non-declaration of balance sheets by "Air Albania" and their declaration by "Turkish Airlines", which still remains unanswered, other fundamental questions continue to arise.

First, why is Turkish Airlines staying silent?

What is being hidden behind this silence?

How is it possible that such a prestigious company does not provide a clear and accurate answer to this issue?

The balances are not in the Central Bank, but in the media

CNA, by deepening the investigation, was able to obtain additional data on who is behind the preparation of balance sheets in Albania, which are not official, but are leaked to the media.

According to CNA sources, over the years the company "Air Albania" has contracted, as the market calls it, one of the "Big4" ("Ernst & Young").

This company has undertaken to provide "Air Albania" with its services, the VAT refund, which must be submitted to the tax authorities by the 14th of each month.

-VAT Purchases & Sales Book, which must be submitted to the tax authorities by the 10th of each month.

- Return of withheld tax, which must be submitted by the 20th of each month.

-Wage tax returns, which must be submitted by the 20th of each month.

- The annual corporate income tax return and financial balance sheets, which must be submitted electronically and in hard copy by March 31 of the following year.

CNA has sent an official e-mail to the company to receive answers regarding questions arising from the contractual terms and services that Ernst & Young was supposed to offer, which ultimately includes the company's annual balance sheet, balance sheets that ended up in the media, but in fact they have not been submitted to the Central Bank for years. 

In the e-mail we sent to the company that must prepare and submit the balance sheets, we asked the following questions:

-First, has he fulfilled the "Ernst & Young" contractual terms?

-Secondly, if so, which ones have been fulfilled and which ones have not?

-Where are the company's balance sheets, which you were contracted to compile and submit?

-What is the agreement between Ernst & Young and the CEO appointed by Turkish Airlines, Sinan Dilek, regarding this issue?

-How is it possible that "Turkish Airlines" has these balance sheets (which they declare in KAP), the media also has them, but in Albania they have not been declared in the Central Bank?

These questions were officially addressed to "Ernst & Young", but we did not receive any response until the publication of the news. CNA will further deepen the investigation regarding "Air Albania" and everything that is hidden behind the non-declaration of balance sheets in Albania.

CNA will continue with the investigation and the question that sums it all up is: How is it possible that the balance sheets are published in Turkey, the media have them, but the auditing company does not respond and does not give them, and neither does the Central Bank or the Albanian state.

These balance sheets are published with a specific purpose by individuals who may have accepted overbilling and abused it, all of which have led to the dire financial situation of "Air Albania".

The worsening of the financial situation of "Air Albania" does not belong to a period of several months, but is long-term and their secret is the balance sheets, where within them are the overbillings received from persons who have accepted them by abusing and damaging "Air Albania" and bringing it serious financial consequences.

CNA will bring further data, which we have investigated and analyzed to the end./ CNA

“Air Albania” came like a diamond for Albania, its name would be our pride. It would fly in the skies of Europe, why not and beyond, it would be “Air Albania” in all airports. But along the way everything became complex, politicized, accused, somewhere the criticism was valid, somewhere the accusation was false. This is a brief overview of what has happened this summer with “Air Albania”.

A little introduction

Recently, there have been many reports that essentially had one goal, to damage this company, but also the name it bore in particular.

Half-truths, scenarios, and media intrigues that muddied the waters, which we thought we would shed some light on to understand what the truth was and what was happening.

After summarizing the importance of “Air Albania” to Albanians, which you can read here , we started digging deeper to understand more about the company's past and future.

To deal with everything that was being thrown around in the peripheral media or not, we asked for the balance sheets, that is, the statements with financial data declared in the Central Bank, and surprisingly there was nothing. The company has not declared them since its establishment.

Who are the shareholders of "Air Albania"?

There is no financial data for "Air Albania" in the Central Bank. From the extract you read below, the company "Turkish Airlines" has 49% of the shares, MDN Investment (owned by citizen Sinan Idrizi) has 41% and ALBcontrol has 10% of the shares, although in the extract and the Central Bank system it comes out with 1%.

extract

extract

The shareholders and other actions are published, but there is no balance sheet of the company. To clarify the whole situation, we intentionally addressed “Air Albania” officially, but up to the moment of this writing we did not receive a response from any of the people we contacted. The only one who answered the phone said to send the questions by e-mail and, of course, we never received a response.

From everything we researched and read from the media and publications of our colleagues, the fact is that information about balance sheets and documents was available in the media, but not in the Central Bank, they did not exist.

"Turkish Airlines" and "Air Albania"

What we further discovered is that one of the shareholders, "Turkish Airlines", for years declared financial information regarding the company "Air Albania", in official documents published for their investors.

“Turkish Airlines” is a big name and company, which is listed on the stock exchange and declares in legal institutions in Turkey. So, even though “Air Albania” does not declare since the beginning of its activity in Albania, in Turkey “Turkish Airlines” reports its financial activity, which also includes the activity of “Air Albania”. So, in short, the materials published in the media about “Air Albania” are based on the declarations of “Turkish Airlines”.

The investigation goes to Turkey

Seeing this fact and providing us with this data, i.e. the statements of "Turkish Airlines", the CNA editorial team went further, sending some questions by e-mail to the leaders of "Turkish Airlines". The e-mail was sent on Tuesday and you can read it here, the questions are as follows:

"Since we are preparing an investigative article regarding 'Air Albania', the national airline of Albania, which has been at the center of much speculation since its founding, we would need your support as a shareholder of this company to answer some questions that will shed light on this investigation. According to Investor Relations and KAP reports:

1. In your financial reports for the period since the company's establishment, we noticed the sentence 'Since 31 December 2019, the loss of Air Albania, which exceeds the Group's total share in the share capital of the joint venture, has not been accounted for in the consolidated financial statements.'

As of June 30, 2025, the loss is US$3. (Loss as of December 31, 2024: US$3), referring to US$3 million and in the Turkish version 98 million TL. Since 'Air Albania' has not submitted any financial statements to the National Business Center in Albania (NBC), in case you have any copy of this Financial Statement of 'Air Albania', we would like to have a copy of it.

2. Referring to the above topic, we would also like to request information for the entire period for any Audit Reports, sales, revenue, passenger numbers, expense reports, etc., on which your statement is based?”

email sent by CNA

email sent by CNA

As of the time of publication of this article, Friday, August 29, at 10:15 AM, the CNA editorial office has not received any response from "Turkish Airlines".

The silence that increases doubts and questions

As is clear from the situation, there are some concerns related to the company and the statements of "Turkish Airlines". But the silence only adds to the suspicions.

Since we did not receive a response from the company, nor from the official auditor, to whom we sent the same questions, the fog that covers everything from silence leads to many uncertainties, which require an answer.

First, could the published audited documents be falsified and is Turkish Airlines manipulating investors? This is a fundamental question to understand the truth of the balance sheets regarding Air Albania.

Since 2018, as we also found out, the company “Air Albania” has been managed by its own personnel. The question arises, since the establishment of “Air Albania”, has the CEO, Sinan Dilek, (who is still a director of “Turkish Airlines”, SVP Catering & In-Flights Products), manipulated the data, or has he shared it only with his company, or has he not fulfilled his obligations? Because the non-declarations in Albania start in 2018, from the day it was launched.

Another fairly simple question is: Why is the company still not declaring its Financial Statements, not even the change in management, as understood from the extract? Why is the new CEO of "Air Albania", Sinan Isik, not publishing the Financial Statements of "Air Albania"?

Another question that still remains unanswered is how the other two shareholders of the company, who together own 51%, allow such biased publications?

And the last, but also very important question is: Why do the published documents have different values ​​between the English and Turkish versions? When we received the documents, we also noticed this, the difference in the balance (Turkish, English) is almost 25% of its total.

(Difference in balance, Turkish and English)

The mission continues.

This investigation of ours regarding “Air Albania” is done to clarify and understand the truth of the name that represents our Albania in the skies of Europe and beyond. We did not find complete answers, but our mission continues.

We, more than an official response, found silence, and by verifying the data we found materials or information that further increased our suspicions that everything that was happening was beyond "Air Albania".

It goes to the 49% shareholder, Turkish Airlines, the largest shareholder that never answered our questions, but simply added to the doubts we raised above./ CNA