Balkan Agenda

The infra-structure in the Balkan countries for air travel is not sufficiently in good shape. In many of the regional airports, the runways are not convenient for heavier aircraft. The inadequate size of the terminal buildings and the poor quality of the equipment pertaining to air navigation are the major stumbling blocks standing in the way of many of the airports in the region being increased. Demand for air traffic in the Balkan countries is expected to rise in parallel to the demand for air transport.

The thing is that the majority of the airports in the region need to be enhanced where their infra-structure is concerned so that they may better accommodate the expected increased demand.

The passenger and cargo traffic is a solid indication of basic airport performance. Among the Balkan capitals, Athens, Bucharest, Belgrade, Sofia and Zagreb, in that order, had the highest passenger traffic in 2007. The same airports, perhaps with a little change in the order, constitute the first five regarding cargo transport. However, the performance of the Balkan airports shows that air transport in the region is rather poor as against that of the leading capitals and cities of the world.

For example, the number of passengers carried in the world’s biggest 30 airports in 2007 varied between 15 million and 61,5 million. A total 28,7 million people were carried in the capital of the Balkan countries in the same period. On the other hand, while the volume of cargo in the world's biggest 30 airports fluctuated between 300 thousand and 3,6 million tonnes, 181,621 tonnes were carried in the airports of the Balkan capital the same year.

It is only the airport of the Greek capital Athens that has a relatively bigger importance among the Balkan countries. Greece made huge investments in its transportation infra-structure ahead of the Olympic Games in 2004 which it hosted. Athens Airport was comprehensively re-constructed between 2001 and 2004 and was geared to catering over 16 million passengers a year.

For an airport to be self-sufficient, it must be capable of servicing 1,5 million passengers annually. As many of the Balkan airports fall behind this critical threshold, state subsidies and investments are inevitably an absolute necessity for air transport to stand on its feet. Moreover, the splitting of the former Yugoslavia into smaller states, the possibilities of running hub-and-spoke systems have become smaller, which has adversely affected not only the economic and financial perspectives of airports but also the quality of flight services.

Under normal circumstances, the flight network in the hub-and-spoke systems is pretty cost-effective for airways managements and increases their profits. So, provided that a convenient agreement is reached, the west Balkan countries may overcome their problems by developing their hub-and-spoke systems. Otherwise, indications are that privatization of airways managements will be the only option in the future for many of the regional countries.

As the surface area of some of the Balkan countries is rather small, developing domestic airlines does not seem possible. The rate of international flights in the region is fairly high. For example, about two thirds of the west Balkan flights carry passengers to and from the west European countries. All EU airways have flights to the region, though Munich, Milan and Vienna are the centers providing wider connections between the Balkan countries and the Western world. Istanbul's Atatürk airport is of great importance in the Balkan countries' connections with the countries in the east.

As for intra-regional air transport, the picture is not hope-inspiring. A survey conducted in this respect shows that the intra-regional trade flights of the Balkan countries, except Greece, do not exceed 10 percent of these countries total commercial flights. This indicates that air connections between the capitals and leading cities of the Balkan countries are under-developed, which impedes fast and comfortable transport in intra-regional flights. Therefore, we can say that the Balkan countries have to improve and enhance air transport among them in order to raise economic integration and cooperation to higher levels.