Further delays for Zagreb’s new terminal

Terminal construction delayed and costs slashed

Although the construction of Zagreb’s new terminal has been delayed for the past decade, just as things started moving forward, the Croatian government has announced a fresh delay to the start of construction and is cutting down on the grandiose project. The tender to choose who will partially finance and run Zagreb’s long awaited new terminal began back in April. The winning bid from the six companies left in the race was supposed to be announced during early November. The government has now publicised that it will select the winning bid in March 2012, effectively pushing back the start of construction. Furthermore, the state is also cutting down on the terminal’s capacity from the planned 5 million passengers per year to 3.5 million. As a result, the price tag of the new terminal has been slashed from 198 million Euros to 190 million. The government claims that this was done upon the request of the bidders.

Construction is now unlikely to start before September next year. However, the Government of Croatia maintains that the first phase of the new terminal should open sometime in 2015. Vying to build the new terminal are Houston Airport, Athens Airport and Seoul Airport to name a few.

The current terminal at Zagreb’s Pleso Airport is already getting crowded. So far this year Zagreb is recording growth of over 13%. By the end of September the airport handled 1.808.810 passengers. By the end of the year the figure should reach 2.3 million with airports across the country expected to record historic passenger growth in 2012. The current terminal has the capacity to handle approximately 2.5 million passengers per year according to official sources.