Skopje airport "Alexander the Great" is the fourth fastest growing airport in Europe in the category under 5 million passengers a year.

According to European Airport Trade Body ACI Europe, whose report covered all civil aviation passenger flights (network coverage, low cost, charter, etc.), the fastest growing airport in this category is the airport in Chisinau Moldova with the growth in the number of passengers by 32% in the first half of this year, announced Vecher.

Followed by the Belgrade airport "Nikola Tesla" with growth of 33%, and the Athens airport and immediately after it is our "Alexander the Great" who transported 559,779 passengers in the first half of this year with growth rate of 18.5%.

The growth was even higher in July when is the summer season peak and when most of perform charter flights to international destinations. According to TAV Airports posted on their website in July the airport accepted and shipped 132,227 passengers, which is increase of 17.6% compared to the same month last year, or the two Macedonian airports (Skopje and Ohrid) last month together had 144,784 passengers which is increase of 12% compared to July 2013. Or, for seven months in "Alexander the Great" and" St. Paul" had 704,563 passengers which is increase of 17% compared to the same period in 2013. TAV statistics says that in the last 12 months (from 13 August 2013 to 14 July 2014) through two domestic airports passed 1,170,685 passengers which exceeded the figure of one million passengers. In that period the previous years were recorded 997,345 passengers.

Positive are numbers in the actual flights. In July, at the two airports passed 1,463 commercial flights, which is growth of 5% compared to the same month last year when there were 1388 flights. Or in the period January-July 2014 were recorded 7,795 take-offs and landings of aircraft which is 9% more compared to seven months last year, writes Vecher.

According to ACI Europe in the first half of this year, the European airport traffic grew by 5.5% and at airports within the European Union is noticed growth of 4.5%, while non-EU airports had greater growth of 8.7%, while the growth of the airport that are not within the EU commented that in the growing percentage entered results from generated traffic at the airports in Iceland, Israel, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. ACI Europe relate these figures with the return of economic growth in the EU as confirmed by growth of 4.6% in freight air transport.

- The results of the first 6 months not only reflect the improved economic conditions in Europe, but show growing demand for air transport of goods, which is good news for the airline industry – said Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, which, however, is cautious and expects in the second half of the year to have significant uncertainties not only for the European economy, but also on global level due to geopolitical risks in Europe.

(Kurir News Agency)