French Again Delay Zagreb Airport Takeover

Doubts have once again been raised about the ability of French consortium ZAIC (Zagreb Airport International Company) to raise finances for the upgrade of Zagreb international airport…

ZAIC, who signed a 30-year concession with the Croatian government to build and manage a new passenger terminal in Croatia’s capital, were due to take over the management of the airport on Monday but have postponed their take over for the 3rd time. ZAIC originally were to take over Pleso airport in April this year, but that date was pushed back to October, and then again until 2 December to give the consortium the time to stump up with the required 365 million euro to fulfill contractual obligations and begin building the new terminal.

Recent staff strikes at the airport was used as the official line as to why ZAIC had again shifted the goal posts when it came to a take over date. According to earlier media reports, ZAIC’s main problem is finding a guarantee for a 120 million euro loan secured from the European Investment Bank. The contract with the Croatian government stipulates that all building work needs to be complete by April 2016. It was planned that over the next three years the new terminal would be built, which would initially be able to accommodate 5 million passengers per year. In the second phase, the building would be expanded to a capacity of 8 million passengers.