PRISTINA (Kosovo), September 16 (SeeNews) – Kosovo’s Pristina International Airport (PIA) on Wednesday reported a 7.6 million euro ($11.17 million) net profit through August, higher than its 7.4 million euro target for the whole year.
PIA has reported a net profit of 7.0 million euro for last year.
“We hope that by the end of the year we will have a net profit of at least 10 million euro,” Altin Ahmeti, the airport’s international relations coordinator, said in a statement.
Passengers’ number rose by 5.0% on the year through August to 827,000, while flights number rose by 16% to 3,890, the statement said. Last year the airport's passenger traffic rose by 10.4% to 1.237 million.
Kosovo, where 90% of the population is ethnic Albanian and the rest are Serbs, declared its secession from Serbia in February, 2008. Its independence is recognized by more then 60 countries, including the U.S. and most of the EU members.
PIA, the sole Kosovo international airport, was opened in 1965 when Kosovo was a province of the Socialist Yugoslav federation. It was managed by Serbs until 1999 when NATO started a bombing campaign to expel Serb forces and end what Western powers said was repression of civilians in fighting an ethnic Albanian rebel insurgency.
After the war, the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) took control of the province and the airport was managed by UNMIK representatives. Now the airport is managed by ethnic Albanians.
($=0.6809 euro)