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The large Airport Istanbul with a capacity of up to
150 million passengers is approaching completion.
What does this mean for the Frankfurt international
hub?
We expect, that the airport will take up service as
planned. It will naturally and from the beginning
take up traffic from the up to now two other airports
at Istanbul. This, at the beginning, is only a change
of location. But naturally, the new airport is also a
competition for the classical European hubs as well
as for the airports in the Middle East. But the Turkish
airlines which was so successful in the past years,
is presently in a difficult situation also because of
the geopolitical developments. Many airplanes are
grounded, purchases of new airplanes have been
temporally stretched.
Against the background of the developments in
Turkey, the approval for the acquisition of the 14
Greek airports has come at the right time?
Greece, as a travel target, has developed very well.
The airports in 2016 had a passenger increase by 9
%. For us, it was important that we could take over
the operations early enough in this year, so that
already the Easter businesses could be part of our
profit and loss accounts. The Greek destinations are
being booked very well because of which we also in
this year have a beautiful increase of the passenger
numbers of up to 7 %.
Has the money been paid?
The 1,234 billion Euro have been paid. With
the plannings for the new construction and the
improvement of the airports, which we have taken
over, we are at an advanced stage. At the airports
Thessaloniki, Korfu, Kefalonia, Kos and Mytilini, we
will build completely new terminals. At the other
airports we change the construction and improve
it. After finishing the works, we will among other
things have increased the terminal areas significantly
by around one third. This is especially good for the
retail shop areas, the quality of being present in the
terminals, and for the processes.
Has anything changed at the sums for the capital
expenditure?
Originally, we had expected around 330 million Euro.
Now, we expect, that it will be a maximum of 400
million Euro. There have always been evaluations as
to the improvement or the reconstruction. Now, we
have clear results and we are interested in a quick
execution because at present, we receive 13 Euro
revenue per departing passenger, but after the new
construction and the improvement we can increase
to 18,50 Euro.
How did you finance the purchase?
We have chosen the mixture between equity and
debt. The equity is around 650 million Euro of which
170 million Euro relates to our partner Copelouzos.
The rest is debt-financed. At this, it is about a pure
project financing plus credit facilities for the capital
expenditures. The interest rates, though, are above the
ordinary level in Germany, but for “Greek situations”
it is nevertheless a very attractive financing.
In Brazil, lately, you were admitted at two airports as
investor, after you had not been successful years ago
at two other investment auctions.
In retrospective, it was shown, that it is sometimes
better not to win an investment auction like in 2013.
Because it is not decisive for an operator to win an
investment bidding, but to make money with airports.
At the time – still before the Olympic Games and the
World Soccer Championship – the euphoria about
Brazil was almost without limits and the number of
bidders could hardly be recognisable. At present, we
have in the country a significantly difficult economic
and political situation, and at the offered four airports
there were only 3 bidders, Vinci, Airport Zurich and
us, for four airports. And only two airports at the
maximum could be taken over by a concessionaire/
licence-holder.
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