Regional airports up for grabs

A few years after the concession of 14 regional airports to the Fraport Greece consortium, the state is preparing to concede another 22 around Greece. The study by the Hellenic Company of Assets and Participations consultants will be updated soon, alongside the preparation for the concession tender for Kalamata airport.

Unlike Kalamata, which will be offered individually, the other 22 airports will be merged into two or three groups, though not all of them are certain to be conceded. Grouping is seen as the ideal way for the state to secure investments both in infrastructures and in electrical and engineering equipment, so that all of them are modernized, including those with little commercial interest.

Analysts estimate that for an airport to be financially viable it needs a minimum of 200,000-300,000 passengers per year, equal to the performance the Kalamata airport managed to record in the years before the pandemic, thanks to the local tourism development driven by the Costa Navarino resort.

The grouping of airports, an ongoing process, will also allow investors to achieve economies of scale.