Macedonia launches subsidy tender

The Macedonian Ministry for Transport and Communications has issued a public call for airlines to request financial support for the introduction of new routes from Skopje and Ohrid airports for the period between January 1, 2023, and December 30, 2025. Compared to the previous three public calls, all of which were won by Wizz Air, the tender includes new terms and conditions, in an attempt to diversify the country’s offer of airlines and available destinations. Carriers interested in applying for the tender must be from Europe, have carried at least ten million passengers and generated 25 million euros in profit in 2019. Furthermore, the airline is obligated to continue operating the new routes past December 30, 2025, for a period of at least two to three years. If it fails to do so, it will have to return the funds granted by the state.

Under the terms outlined in the public call, airlines must maintain flights to the newly launched destinations at least twice per week throughout the year for the duration of the financial assistance, develop a plan for marketing and promotion and submit a report on its operations to the Ministry of Transport and Communications every six months The Ministry will select the winner based on the number of weekly flights offered on the new routes, the volume of passengers at the destination airport (the busier the airport the greater the chance of the route being subsidised), as well as the amount of offered capacity. Funding will not be provided for routes from Skopje which have been operated from the airport in the past two seasons (summer and winter), nor from Ohrid if they have been operated either from the lakeside city or the Macedonian capital over the past two seasons.

Macedonia will subsidise the services by providing each airline with seven euros per passenger on each new route from Skopje, and 4.5 euros per passenger on each new route from Ohrid. Interested applicants have until January 19 to submit their bids. Wizz Air was the only airline to have applied to all three previous public calls. The Macedonian Minister for Transport and Communications, Blagoj Bočvarski, noted, “The new model aims to include as many airlines as possible and not be tied to just one. We are also limiting the amount of subsidies, as required and requested by the European Commission, all in order to enable as many destinations as possible for citizens and to develop air traffic. Airlines that operate with larger aircraft, to main airports and offer more weekly flights will have an advantage. The contract will oblige airlines to continue to maintain flights on the route even after the subsidy contract ends”.