Serbia targets Kraljevo Airport opening by mid-2019

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The Serbian President, Aleksandar Vučić, has announced that Kraljevo's Morava Airport in Central Serbia, which boasts a new terminal building, should be opened by mid-2019. The government has previously missed numerous deadlines set for the airport's opening. "This won't be an airport of the same capacity as the one in Belgrade and Niš but will cater for smaller aircraft", Mr Vučić said. The airport's 22-million euro terminal and control tower were completed in 2012, however, its 2.200 metre-long and thirty metre-wide runway can only handle smaller turboprop aircraft. Earlier this year, Mr Vučić noted, "I will open this airport but we have a lot of issues. This is because we first have to see how and in which way Niš Airport will function. We are not a big country in order to maintain so many airports. It is easiest to give ten, twenty or thirty million euros to build an airport. But how are we going to cover their costs so they don't generate ten million euros in losses each year? Or five million?" Serbia plans to cap passenger growth at its secondary airports on a temporary basis as part of the 25-year concession agreement for Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport with France's VINCI. The government has admitted that figures will be confined to one million passengers for each airport in the country within a 230 kilometre radius of Belgrade until Nikola Tesla Airport reaches twelve million travellers per year.