Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at a ceremony following landing of first commercial flight in new Zayed North Wings International Airport on Sunday in Kukes:
Today is a fantastic day for Kukes, Albania, Kosovo and all Albanians, for the sake of truth.
I would like first to clarify on something, as many people are asking, why it has been named Zayed airport.
This is called Zayed-North Wings airport, because it is not just a new airport. This airport is also a site of remembrance and this airport’s building is at the same time a temple of remembrance of this area, this large community of Albanians from Pristina to Tirana and everywhere else where Albanians reside. It was precisely this area where the huge camp was set up to provide shelter to those who were expelled and displaced from their homes violently and they headed towards Albania, with Kukes being most populated station.
At that time, many people came here from all over the world, including someone who today is the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, the son of one of the wisest men this world has ever seen, Sheik Zayed, who thanks to his genial vision gave live to what we know as United Arab Emirates today.
He asked his son to travel to here, accompanied by the today’s Prime Minister of Dubai, Sheikh Al Maktoum. They were both young and they came here to personally take care of the war refugees. The wise old man had ordered from the very beginning that the runway be built immediately and the track of this runway is the track of this whole incredible story of solidarity with those in need at that moment and the story of fraternity and care for people to survive ethnic cleansing.
The Crown Prince still recalls that he was called twice a day, in the morning and midday, while being here at that time, repeating the same thing every day. “My son, I would like you all there to show utmost care in distributing aid, make sure that none of the families lack food, water and, above all, take care that nobody feels discriminated in religious terms when it comes to the aid distribution, because they are all brothers and sisters.”
The message conveyed by that old wise man will now eternally live in this very land as part of our spiritual heritage.
On the other hand, the airport has been also named North Wings, because Kukes is Albania’s north, as well as the other side of the border, where our brothers and sisters came from, is the north of Albania, where one of the most tragic yet with happy end stories, the history of the ethnic cleansing, but also the history of the Kosovo Liberation War, that brought the irreversible independence of Kosovo, was written.
This is the reason why inside the airport you will find not only a tribute to what was the mastermind of the solidarity runway, but also a tribute to those who at that time were the embodiment of pain and suffering from a tragedy we never want to forget, as well as a tribute to resistance, which is part of the character of the Albanians that we should never lose.
It would suffice for every international foreigner who would come from all over the world to walk from the check-in area to the exit area and figure out they are actually visiting a land, where a sacred chapter of the history of Albanians is written.
On this occasion, I would like to share with you the fact that today I miss someone a lot and I assure you all he is one of the greatest Albanians. History will consider him this way, one of the greatest Albanians, not because he is my brother, but because he is really one of the greatest Albanians, Hashim Thaçi.
Here today – I don’t know whether he is watching us now – but I would wish to send him a hug and tell him an extraordinary moment in history of Albanians is being preserved on these walls, when Hashim Thaçi and Ibrahim Rrugova together paved the way towards Kosovo’s liberation.
Kukes airport will be a new very powerful engine for further economic and social development. The airport will generate fresh investments and attract a significant number of international visitors to the region.
Today we flew from Tirana to Kukes, because, based on all international aviation regulations, every airport as soon as it becomes operational, it starts operating as a local airport. A certification procedure has yet to take place so that it becomes certified as an international airport and this procedure lasts around 50 to 60 days and once it is certified during the coming weeks, the agreements will be reached and signed with the airline companies, which have shown incredibly high interest, for the sake of truth, and the airport will provide opportunity to passengers from the region, not only from Kukes, but also Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Montenegro, to fly to various destinations and the traffic will steady grow in the coming months.
Many people say “what for do we need airports as they are for wealthy people?”
Albanians are people who travel most than any other in the region, in terms of entry and exit number per capita. Airports are the most-sought addresses of those who travel a lot, mostly wealthy people, while Albanians are the ones who travel most frequently. And not only that, what I would like to tell those who consider airports a completely unnecessary luxury investment, is that airports are actually like bread factories.
Certain people say ask whether Albania really needs four airports, since Albania is a tiny country.
Croatia has a population of four million people, yet it has nine airports and it ranks seventh as world’s powers in tourism, because it has nine sky gates to exploit its all territory for the people wishing to visit the country and it offers a very good condition to tourists, who when coming by plane, they are visitors who spend more.
What happens is that the exponential increase in the number of those entering through many gates requires an exponential increase in the number of those hosting them in terms of the number of those working in this sector of hospitality called tourism.
This airport will generate more investments by people here, emigrants, the London boys, and other people to make sure that there is a sufficient number to host and feed them, provide accommodation opportunities and assist them for everything they wish. It is a very simple statistically-proven fact that what you invest in the airport is exponentially multiplied and one euro invested in airport is translated into 23 euros in revenues within a reasonable time.
It is my great pleasure to be today with a very precious friend, who, I can openly state, is a precious friend of mine, but also of Albania. He is one of the closest people to the Crown Prince. Together with him, we will build the huge tourist harbour in Durres, set to be the largest tourist port in the Mediterranean, an investment that is not a wish or an idea, but a construction plan scheduled to kick off in the coming months. We are confident that the construction work will begin within June and the investment is estimated at over two billion euros.
New tourist ports are also set to be constructed in Vlora, Saranda and Shengjin, which is expected to begin in 2023.
Albania with four sky gates – in addition to Tirana International Airport that will undergo an expansion project to build a new terminal and extent its runway to make sure that direct flights to the United States begin with the Air Albania’s aircraft called “Fan Noli” and we will deliver on this promise – Vlora and Saranda airport, eight in total, including the four sea gates and two new commercial cargo ports.
Do you realize how much Albania will develop in the next four, five or six years! We will build a comprehensive, all-inclusive economy with more employment, but, above all, with more quality jobs.
The new tourist harbour alone will create as many as 12,000 new jobs. Consider also the rest of planed investment projects, a package of 10 million euros due to be invested in the next four, five and six years.
This investment package would lead to a huge transformation of the country.
We went through a terrible period as we were hit by the earthquake and the pandemic. We dealt with two major blows that would have knelt down everyone.
We didn’t succumb and instead we resisted and withstood with strong determination and today we can say we succeeded in the efforts to make the light in the end of the pandemic tunnel become brighter.
We will do it, because it is our mission to send Albania to the top where our children deserve. It is our mission as the generation to fulfil that legacy pass on from generation to generation and that has been protracted continuously, although God has blessed Albanians with everything a nation needs to live in peace and to have well-being and normalcy. In which country one would find all these wonders within such a small territory, from the Alps to the Ionian coast, passing through many rivers, stunning landscapes. God has made Albania patiently, as much as it seems like he made it on Sunday, when it was a holiday. God took it easy and embroidered it all over her body.
