Belgrade Airport profit triples

Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport - Terminal 2

Despite the global financial crisis Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport finished the year on a high. It managed to have slightly higher passenger numbers at the end of the year but more importantly it achieved a 14.3 million Euro net profit last year, up from 4.5 million Euros in 2007. Officials forecast that by the end of 2009 Belgrade Airport will operate with a profit of 16.9 million Euros, which would also be a significant increase in one of the toughest years, economically, since World War Two. The current annual capacity at the airport’s two terminals stands at 5 million with Terminal 1 expected to become the Schengen terminal (inter-EU travel) in the next decade.

Belgrade Airport is still state-owned and it awaits privatisation as the government intends to partly apply a voucher privatisation, under which millions of Serbian citizens would receive, free of charge, a portion of the shares of Nikola Tesla Airport and four other major state-owned enterprises. The move has been repeatedly postponed despite a completed registration of eligible beneficiaries, who would later be able to trade the stocks on the Belgrade stock exchange.