March 1 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia's transport ministry said on Wednesday it is launching a new procedure for offering subsidies to airlines that will introduce new flights from the country's international airports in 2023-2025, after the previous procedure was cancelled.
The government will provide airlines with subsidies of 7 euro ($7.5) per passenger on each new flight from Skopje airport and 4.5 euro per passenger for every new flight from Ohrid airport, the transport ministry said in a press release.
The deadline for submitting applications is March 31.
The previous call for subsidies for new routes was cancelled because the evaluation commission concluded that the three applicants had not submitted the complete required documentation, the transport ministry said earlier.
The call, which was open from January 20 to January 26, attracted applications from Hungary's WizzAir, Germany's Lufthansa and Greece's Aegean Airlines.
The project's main goal is to increase air traffic and make it easier to connect the country to destinations across Europe, and even beyond, by using the full capacity of the two airports.
Passenger numbers at North Macedonia’s international airports in Skopje and Ohrid rose by 70.4% on the year in 2022, reaching 2.27 million, Aeroports de Paris (ADP) said earlier. ADP owns 46% of Turkey’s TAV Airports, the company operating the airports in North Macedonia.
($ = 0.936956 euro)