English
Investments in infrastructure and the aviation sector have contributed to the growth of tourism in the country and a strong increase in air traffic. We have created an ambitious agenda, we are investing seriously and the results are visible. We have an increase of over 32% in the number of passengers from both airports, 28 new destinations and an increase of about 20% in foreign tourists, said Deputy Prime Minister and Transportation Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski, in response to a parliamentary question at today’s session in the Parliament.
Nikoloski said that, on top of this, the infrastructure projects that are being worked on to connect the airports as well as increase their capacities will stimulate additional growth in the number of passengers.
After this Government was elected, a new methodology for attracting passengers was created, which has yielded its results. That methodology has been accepted by the European Union, it has received all the permits from there, as well as from the Commission for the Protection of Competition. In that direction, I expect this year to go over 3.5 million passengers, considering that for the period January – May we already have 1,600,000 passengers, That is a growth of somewhere around 32% at both airports together, which is quite serious growth and it is the largest individual growth in all of Europe. Why not, in a period of several years, we can reach 4 million. What is also significant is that many new destinations are opening, 28 new destinations have been opened on regular lines, in addition to that we have about 16 charter lines from both airports, said Nikoloski.
In the part of the Skopje airport, he emphasized that in the past period, strong work has been done on quality infrastructure connection and announced a project for a railway connection from Skopje to the airport terminal building.