Deadline for regional airport bids is extended
The process for the submission of expressions of interest in the tender concerning the privatization of regional airports has been extended by 14 days, with the state privatization fund (TAIPED) attributing the delay to the interested parties’ need of additional clarifications.
The extension, to May 31, concerns two groups of regional airports that will be conceded for 30-35 years while the contractors will have to make infrastructure investments in the terminals amounting to 200-220 million euros in the next three years.
There has already been talk of interest on the part of Germany’s Fraport, Switzerland’s Flughafen Zurich and Argentina’s Corporacion America. However, given that at this first stage the interest to be expressed only concerns non-binding offers, if TAIPED does not get a satisfactory number of bids it is likely to see the chances of a successful completion of the selloff process diminish dramatically.
The first cluster concerns the airports of Thessaloniki, Corfu, Zakynthos, Cephalonia, Aktio, Kavala and Hania, with the potential inclusion of Alexandroupoli, Araxos and Kalamata. The second cluster includes the terminals at Skiathos, Samos, Mytilene, Myconos, Santorini, Kos and Rhodes, with the possible addition of Karpathos, Chios and Limnos.
