Turkey’s airports authority will organize tenders to lease four airports, aiming to benefit from investors’ interest in the sector that was prompted by the third Istanbul airport
Turkey is set to put out a tender for the operational rights of four more airports before the end of this year, the state airports authority manager has announced, as part of the government’s plans to raise money by involving the private sector in transportation investments through partnerships.
The Dalaman, Bodrum-Milas, Samsun and Nevşehir-Cappadocia airports will be transferred to the private sector, in compliance with the ‘lease-transfer’ model of public financing, the General Director of State Airports Authority (DHMİ) Orhan Birdal said in an interview with Reuters yesterday.
“Our studies on the feasibility of tenders are continuing. The Bodrum and Dalaman tenders will definitely be separate. We’re working to see if we can unite Nevşehir and Samsun as a single group,” he added, underlining that the authority thinks all the tenders will stir huge interest from investors.
Both located in southeastern province of Muğla, Dalaman airport’s annual capacity is 8 million while Bodrum’s is 7.6 million. The Black Sea airport in Samsun has a capacity of 2 million, and the Central Anatolian Nevşehir has a capacity of 700,000.
All four airports accommodate both domestic and international flights.
The operational rights of the Dalaman and Bodrum airports’ international terminals are already held by companies, valid until 2015, but their domestic terminals, as well as the whole of the Nevşehir and Samsun airports, are under DHMİ authority.
A partnership of YDA and Turkuaz, ATM, holds the operational rights of the Dalaman international terminal until April 28, 2015, while Mondial-Astaldi owns Bodrum’s until the end of 2015.
Birdal said that after the expiration of companies’ rights, the companies that won the new tenders would operate both domestic and international sections together.
The DHMİ put $7.1 billion into its cashbox through the transfer of operational rights of terminal buildings between 2005 and 2010.
Currently there are 50 airports under DHMİ authority, 11 of which are partly operated by private actors. “If the private sector demands it, we own the legal rights to transfer airports other than the four to be leased,” Birdal said.
The DHMİ’s move came just in time, as the third Istanbul airport tender has whet the appetite of airport investors who could possibly interested in new ones as well, sector sources told Reuters.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
