The consortium that recently assumed the management of 14 regional airports around Greece – including ones in the best-known tourism destinations – reportedly demands a 70-million-euro rebate from the Greek state due to the worse-than-expected condition of the facilities, according to a press report by Spiegel on Thursday.
In an article with an Athens dateline, Spiegel reports the Fraport Greece consortium, where Frankfurt-based Fraport holds a controlling share, is entitled to claim compensation based on the concession agreement that was implemented last April with the Greek state.
Local media reports this week were rife with allegations that the airports’ new management discovered some 12,000 burned out light bulbs at the 14 facilities, in one instance of poor maintenance. Other reports cited non-operable fire extinguishers. Prior to the takeover other reports swirled that no functioning fire engines were available at Thessaloniki’s Macedonia Airport, which serves Greece’s second largest urban area.
Spiegel stressed that neither Fraport Greece officials nor the leftist-rightist coalition government that finally handed over the airports to the private sector wanted to comment on the report.
The state-managed Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF-TAIPED), Greece’s memorandum-mandated privatization agency, selected the Fraport-Copelouzos consortium as a preferred bidder in November 2014 for the 40-year operating concessions, for both Clusters A and B, based on the highest bid of 1.234 billion euros for both clusters.
Fraport and Copelouzos Group established their joint company, Fraport Greece, in 2015 to act as the agent for the two concessions.
On Dec. 14, 2015, Fraport Greece signed deals with the HRADF and the Greek state for the 40-year concessions for the two clusters. The contracts are based exactly on the same bid submitted by Fraport-Copelouzos and selected by HRADF in November 2014.
The consortium took over the management of the 14 airports, which includes most of Greece’s pre-eminent tourist destinations, in March 2017.
Greek Minister answers
On the other hand, the furor prompted by Spiegel’s report about Fraport, asserting that it will claim 70 million euros in compensation for the poor condition of Greece’s 14 regional airports, was “an unnecessary fuss,” said Alternate Economy Minister Stergios Pitsiorlas in an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency’s radio station Praktoreio 104.9 FM on Friday.
“There is an ongoing procedure underway, and before this is concluded we have no reason to show concern,” he noted, and added: “We are dealing with a major contract and, like all the other concessions, there will obviously be problems in the implementaion. The contracts make provision for the procedures to resolve such problems and we will have to wait for these procedures to see whether or not problems eventually exist. As regards the specific issue, the process of resolving technical differences is underway and I think we need to have confidence that this process will finally clarify things.”
On the former Helliniko airport investment and main opposition New Democracy’s criticism, Pitsiorlas underlined that we should let the Central Archaeological Council (KAS) conclude the procedure and predicted that whatever decision KAS reaches “will not create problems that cannot be overcome.”
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