Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at the inauguration ceremony of Albania’s first national airline company Air Albania: 

 

To me, and not to me alone, it is an extremely special emotion that together with friends, collaborators and goodwill partners, today we fulfil not just a commitment to our fellow citizens, but also a long-standing dream, an impossible dream for many years, the first red and black airline company Air Albania.

It is a dream that takes wings today to embark on a long, yet not an easy flight, but our goal and my personal ambition is to take Albanians as far away as possible and brings them together as much as possible.

I am extremely pleased that at the same time the national carrier Air Albania is a red and black and national work, a major accomplishment on Skanderbeg’s year.

Air Albania might have and might have not existed, but the idea to turn it into the vector of a greater freedom for Albanian travellers through direct attention and a real opportunity for them to have Air Albania their first choice company, it is and remains our ambition.

First choice means the Albanians’ common house when they embark on a trip. Of course, in this aspect, the establishment of our first national airline company – not under the signature of speculations or the typical financial frauds we unfortunately are used over many years, but under the signature of legal, financial and technical guarantees and in full accordance with any international civil aviation criteria – is for our country a strategic and long-term instrument, which comes with the guarantee of an indisputable partner, a global powerhouse in the international aviation industry, the Turkish Airlines, which, among the world’s largest competitors over many years, has been awarded for quality and business prestige in aviation several times.

The truth is that the Albanian state cannot feel itself whole and complete if it is to neglect, after for a long time having forgotten the need to take its modest, yet unchangeable position on the map and the screens of airports’ traffic control towers and countries Albanian passengers travel to. And with the national carrier, indeed we have ushered in a new era of interconnection with Europe and beyond Europe too.

Today, thanks to company Air Albania we will fly to more and far more distant destinations. It will take a vision, it will take this partnership and the determination to go this far, since it has been not easy at all to gradually and day to fly with both feet on the ground, but it is about a steady and constant flight that will enable this company to play a key role, not only in terms, finally, of a decent service due to be provided to Albanians, who have been and are forced to fly with old passenger planes and offered a completely underserved service, but also as a key to our tourism development strategy as part of our objective to attract 10 million international tourists a year by 2025.

Air Albania is a tough undertaking, since we wouldn’t have succeeded without the initiative and the generous support from President Erdogan. However, the path towards establishment of Air Albania has been not easy after the decision was made and I believe that the witnesses on my both sides today can tell a lot about what motivated us when applying for it, saying “let’s try once,” and I am pretty convinced that a majority of them have never imagined how soon we would be dressed in these beautiful uniforms of our red and black airline company. Meanwhile, in spite of the readiness of the Turkish Airlines, it also took a lot of efforts and long hours of hard work pursuing this major goal.

Today, we have a company that doesn’t merely bear a name representing us all, but a national carrier, where, in addition to the Turkish Airlines, which is the partner of minority, the Albanian state is a direct shareholder as a guarantor to represent the interests of every citizen and every passport holder of this country, and not only, but also all Albanians who will fly with Air Albania.

I don’t want to speak further about history, but suffice to say that the growth in the number of Albanian passengers traveling by air is impressive. Despite the problems we face in the gradual and pretty fast economic growth, the data show an exponential increase in the number of Albanian passengers travelling by air. On the other hand, the figures show that 99% of the flights cover short, or very distances only, and the majority of them are flights that last less than 120 minutes. Our ambition with Air Albania is to go beyond that.

It was 94 years ago, in 1924, when Albania’s then government made its first attempt to establish a European airline company and Adria Aero Lloyd was established back then, with Sofia, Rome, Belgrade and Podgorica being its main flight destinations, but – just imagine – including also our cities like Elbasan, Gjirokastra, Korça, or Peshkopia. But on the other hand, we are today the Europe’s only country with a sole international airport. Of course, the then runways were merely just unpaved roads and are incomparable to the modern aviation’s complexity and needs, but yet Albanians used to travel by air to Peshkopia, Elbasan, Gjirokastra, and Korça.

I am not saying this is the future goal, but I am underlining that in addition to efforts to strengthen our national carrier, we are working to ensure that we no longer remain the only country with a sole airport, but build three other more airports, namely in Vlora, Kukes and Saranda.

I listen carefully the countless and sometimes boring, but yet completely right demands from the Albanian citizens who live abroad during whole year and wish to spend their vacation in Albania, but are forced to pay mindboggling flight ticket prices. Of course it is their right to pour out their whole accumulated wrath on the government and on me because of the lack of the conditions we will create gradually. However, on the other hand, this is the price of an inherited legacy resting on our shoulders and of which we are step by step being liberated.

Air Albania is the instrument to be absolved of this legacy by providing flights and more decent service and competitive prices. The construction of new airports will also lead us along this path.

To us living in this country and used to what instantly reminds us of what Clement Ader, back in 1875, called a flying machine imitating natural birds, the eagle is the first thing that comes to mind first whenever thinking of the flight. Meanwhile, on this occasion, we found out that the flying machines that imitate natural birds should bear names and we decided to name our eagles after our great poets. The first one on our back is named “Lasgush”. The next one to follow the one-month test flights between Tirana and Istanbul and then to Rome, Milan, Bologna and London, will be named after Migjeni. Our ambition is to establish direct Tirana-New York flights with an airplane named after “Monsignor Noli” by end of next year.

I am not going to provide the full list of our poets, but I will conclude with Lasgush by reciting a verses from his “The Dance of Stars” poem:

“They will take flight,

To endless skies,

Without beginning, neither end nor side.”

I would like to extend a wholeheartedly appreciation to all of those who made this dream come true, being fully aware that this dream now needs to be alive and become the attracting magnetic power and the guarantee to all Albanians who wish to fly on the board of their airborne red and black home. Above all, I would like to send a very special praise to the person who is hosting this event, Belinda, “the red and black witch” of our civil aviation, who has done everything needed professionally and with a will and passion without which we wouldn’t be here today.

At the same time, I would like to express gratitude to the next speaker, a good friend of this country, the representative of the President on the board of Air Albania, a work-hardened pilot, for his precious assistance in all aspects.

Thank you very much for coming here today! “Lasgush” will stay here, we will go home, while you will fly immediately since you have other skies to fly through.

Thank you very much again and I wish the boys and girls of Air Albania crew the best of luck and success!