NEWS FLASH
Serbian millionaire Miodrag Kostić has acquired a further 7.8% stake in Aerodrom Portorož, the operator of Portorož Airport, becoming the single-largest shareholder in the company with a 38.3% stake. The businessman acquired the shares from Istabenz after purchasing a 30% stake from Fraport Slovenia last year. The remaining shareholders are the Piran Municipality (36.2%), Luka Koper (15.2%) and CPK (10.2%). Mr Kostić, who made his fortunes in the sugar industry, previously acquired the Kempinski Hotel in Portorož and is also seeking to buy Marina Portorož. The tycoon's company, the MK Group, previously said, "Portorož has the potential to further develop and increase the number of foreign visitors. That is why we want to develop both the airport and marina. We want to promote Portorož as a high-end destination and it is in our interest to boost the number of flights in order for the airport to work at full capacity". Portorož is the second busiest airport in the country but has no scheduled commercial flights. It handled 25.450 passengers in 2017. The lengthening of the airport's runway is seen as crucial for attracting new airlines.
If Portoroz develops nicely it could also attract customers from Trieste and Istra.
ReplyDeleteIt has no room to lenghten the strip
ReplyDeleteThey can buy the property around. The municipality can move the road and the toll.
DeleteEven if, the max they can get out is 1450m. It would be easier if they'd demolish the airport and build it from scratch across the road
DeleteI think Kostic actually bought it to build property, closing the airport to use its land.
DeleteTo me on google maps it looks like there is plenty of room for a runway lengthening towards the North, at least 1000m. That would make the airport get a 2km runway which is perfect for A320/737!
Deletethat is not possible; that area is protected and is where they harvest sea salt
DeleteSea salt spiced with a kerosine pr JET A1 flavour.
DeleteAs high-end destination it does not have to have commercial flights. Charter and private taxi obviously functioning great.
ReplyDeleteBravo Slovenia and Serbia! ;-)
Why bravo? Ordinary workers in the Kempinsky Portoroz are paid peanuts even for the Slovenian standard. Hotel is open just part of the year. Tourism in Portoroz is seasonal. Nothing hight end there. Sea is not so clean in summer, air is full of ozone in summer from afternoon till late evening and dangerous for old, sick, small kids and active healthy people. Place is dirty, full of drunk lower income visitors. Restaurants are overpriced and offering the same crap. It's a nightmare! Hight end are only the prices of everything especially in summer.
DeleteTraffic is chaotic too. But at least in Spring and Autumn the nature around is beautiful. Entertainment is ground zero. Noisy no sense no vision not attracting the rich visitors.
DeletePOW has no potential. The government will never accept the spatial to extend the runway in the protected lanscape.
ReplyDeleteCorrect. It has 0 potential because of the protected areas around and the border on the other side.
DeleteWhile POW is geographically cursed, I wouldn't say it has zero potential.
DeleteThe current airport perimeter limits do allow for runway extension of up to 1,450m which - while not ideal, would allow many smaller aircraft (jet and prop)types to operate with minimal or no payload restriction via RWY33 - RWY15 is a different story.
If you have a look at some pretty busy airports - such as SDU in Rio (1.323m for the longer runway), it accommodates fully laden 737s and A319s (with upgraded brakes) and standard E-190s. London City is at 1,500m and is a very busy airport handling E190s and CS100s as well as the A318s. The point I'm making is that in POW's case, it serves an area that is destined for the higher end tourist and not massive arrivals, hence smaller and more appropriate (for this market) pax aircraft could relatively easily operate with the possible extension of the runway - which would then require a serious upgrade of the terminal which is old and way too small. So potential is there if they want it.
POW serves a niche market and could not and does not compete nor compare with LJU, RJK, TRS or PUY nearby.
Portoroz is not a higher end tourist destination. Would like to be but is not.
DeleteWhy does rwy33 have that massively displaced threshold?
ReplyDeleteThere is a quite steep hill next to the airport.
Deletehttp://slovenia-taxi.si/static/images/dest_imgs/600/307753171125707787.jpg
RJK cannot be compared to PUY or LJU. It hardly functions
ReplyDelete