Six left in Zagreb terminal race

TAV fails to make the second round

The tender to choose who will partially finance and run Zagreb’s long awaited new terminal is entering its final month. From the original ten offers, a total of six have made it into the second round, although the Croatian government has refused to reveal the names of those companies. Now, Croatian media have reported that the six airports vying to build and run Zagreb’s new terminal are: GMR Infrastructure & Flughafen Munchen (Munich Airport), ADC & HAS Airports (Houston Airport), J&P Avax & Athens International Airport, Flughafen Zurich (Zurich Airport and Turkish airport operator), Seoul Incheon International Airport and the French Riviera Airport Consortium. As a result, the high profile bid submitted by TAV Holdings & TAV Construction from Turkey has been rejected. According to local media reports, TAV is demanding for the tender process to be halted, arguing that corruption has been involved. However, the tender has been successful since it managed to attract ten well established companies. The bid submitted by Houston Airport is believed to be the favourite.

The tender to find a partner to participate in a joint public private partnership with the Croatian government began back in April. The winning bid should be announced during the month. However, since the start of the second round of the process was delayed by almost four weeks it is unknown whether these delays will prolong the second round as well.

Construction of the new terminal is set to start in late 2012. The value of the project is estimated at up to 220 million Euros. The conditions of the tender outline that bidders must not own an airline, must not depend on state financing and are not allowed to be in ownership of any other airport within a 400 kilometre radius from Zagreb. Under these conditions Vienna Airport was disqualified from the race due to its close proximity to Croatia’s capital city.