First passenger plane of the Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air touched down the runway of the Zayed North Wings international airport in Kukes, north-eastern Albania, on Friday, as Europe’s fastest growing airline will launch four new direct routes from new Kukes international airport respectively to Austria, Germany and Switzerland twice a week.
Kukes Airport is already a certified part of NATO logistics, which means it meets all technical safety standards and security requirements set by the EU and NATO as well. Wizz Air, the largest low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe, was launched in 2014 and it currently employs 200 young Albanians with the prospect of increasing the number of employees to over 500.
Addressing a ceremony marking inclusion of the new Kukës international airport to the carrier’s network with four new routes, Prime Minister Edi Rama said that “within this term in office, the town of Kukes and its airport will become a point of reference, not only for the residents in Albania’s northeast or the Kosovo citizens, or North Macedonia, but for a wider region as the Kukes airport offer will be quite competitive and a winning offer for everyone, for the community and the national economy.”
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Hello everyone!
I am very happy to be here at the Kukes international airport again to announce the allocation of aircrafts of the Wizz Air carrier following an important period of talks, discussions and tests conducted by the airline and starting today the company has added Kukes airport to its network with four initial new low fare routes already on sale with two flights a week, which will become regular flights starting in May and not just seasonal flights.
It is a special pleasure to find out that Wizz Air airline will start operating flights from Kukës Airport “Zayed – Wings of the North” towards European destinations.
In the meantime, together with the carrier’s CEO we have also been discussing ways to launch a start operations to and from Kukës International Airport to London, England, which is an important destination, and I won’t give up Kukes until “the London Boys of Kukës” are provided flights from Kukes to London and from London to Kukes, or other destinations at totally symbolic and cheap flights.
This is the day to tell all of those completely impatient that this and every other good work takes their time and patience. We have come across so many statements once we launched work on construction of a new international airport in Kukes. This was the case when the Kukes international airport was inaugurated and we will definitely hear a lot even today. However, after all the words are blown by the wind and the good deeds and works are all that remains and I am profoundly confident that a brighter future lies ahead for this airport and the entire Kukes region also thanks to this new airport.
I would like to thank the company’s CEO for the readiness to consider Kukes airport as an opportunity, because he was sceptical at first, but then the whole analysis turned out to be in favor of the airport.
Today is a very beautiful sunny day here, with the snow-capped surrounding peaks and I am very pleased to be here to provide a fresh opportunity to all local residents, not only in Kukes, but a whole region, which includes the area on the other side of the mountains, namely Kosovo and North Macedonia, by launching four new routes to Austria, Germany and Switzerland; three countries, but four destinations, twice a week, with fares starting as low as EUR 19.99 for each flight destination.
We are witnessing how the panorama of airfare prices has already changed thanks to the civil aviation reforms , thanks to the changes to the system, thanks t the free and fair competition and, of course, also thanks to the negotiations and the new accord with the Albanian company that has been awarded the concessionary contract on the Tirana International Airport, with words again having been blown away by the wind, while with the facts remaining there, as a diverse and wide range of offers are now available to travellers, while the ticket prices have dropped almost ten times lower for everyone to fly from England to Albania or from elsewhere, although there are airlines imposing higher fares and others applying lower prices. However, the drop in airfare prices is very significant and Tirana airport, from a totally non-competitive airport in the European market, has now become a very competitive one.
I am confident that with the government’s next decision to lift the border tax at airports, the ticket prices will further drop for the citizens in the future and the decision will also mark another significant step in terms of competition.
What is worth mentioning here – and I don’t know why the CEO forgot it although this has been part of our discussions – is the aspect of employment, creation of new jobs.
Wizz Air has currently employed as many as 200 Albanian boys and girls and it plans to ramp up recruitment and hire a total of 500 Albanian employees. The company plans to launch the calls for new applications and job opportunities in the coming months. The company will employ more young people to allow them to take up quality and high-paying jobs. And of course, all those who want to test themselves and take up a job in this company, as well as in other companies, should simply not wait for the job position to be sent to them by plane, but apply for such jobs instead.
The last thing I would like to underline today is that we will continue to invest.
Massive investments will be made in Tirana airport based on the agreement and contract we signed with the concessionaire, at last an Albanian company, which has been awarded the contract on the Tirana International Airport. Investments will be made for the runway to guarantee the launch of trans-ocean flights, as promised.
An investment project will be made to build the new terminal to cope with the increased influx.
The director of WizzAir pointed out a very significant and meaningful fact, though for many and especially for those who prefer social media data over science data, from the vaccine to all sorts of figures, this fact can be heard or not, thanks to this company and its offer alone, Albanian citizens have been spared of 120 million euros thanks to reduction of fares applied by Tirana international airport. The calculation we make is more or less twice as low in ticket prices alone. For all those who complain that we only increase and make it more expensive, while the opposite is true. Wherever we have the opportunity to influence, we do so and in fact Albania today is the country with the lowest tax burden in the region and in Europe, namely for small business or for the household consumer and, the government is making efforts to protect household consumers and businesses from rising electricity prices, which is happening in all countries around.
To conclude, in parallel with Tirana we are investing in Vlora.
We will start investing in Saranda, we will insist in all four directions and with the first four weekly destinations, twice a week, here in Kukës a new era begins for Kukës airport and for this whole area, but of course, as I said at the beginning, I will not give up this airport and this region until the projections for hundreds, thousands of passengers from and to Kukes airport becomes a reality. Within this term in office, the town of Kukes and its airport will become a point of reference, not only for the residents in Albania’s northeast or the Kosovo citizens, or North Macedonia, but for a wider region as the Kukes airport offer will be quite competitive and a winning offer for everyone, for the community and the national economy, for Wizz Air airline that will definitely see Kukes differently, as Air Albania was the early swallow and Wizz Air joins now and many other companies will definitely follow the suit.
Thank you very much!
