Kosovo's Pristina Airport Sees 2009 Net Profit Rising Over 50% to 11 Mln Euro

"The achieved profit exceeded all expectations," the airport's managing director Agron Mustafa said in a statement posted on PIA's website.

He said that capital investments will be reduced to a minimum and the airport's owner, the government of Kosovo, will decide the distribution of this year's profit.

Passengers numbers at the airport rose by six percent year-on-year to over 1.2 million this year. The number of flights have increased by up to 20%, or by over 1,000, the airport said, but gave no estimate for the total number of flights.

PIA (www.airportpristina.com), 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.

($ = 0.6946 euro)