Monocle - Volume 01 Issue 07 October 2007

Topic : SUN BLOC - Albania

Page : 083

Writer: Josh Levine

The Sky's the limit
In June 2007, George Bush's plane touched down at Tirana International Airport. After a €50m modernisation programme, including a strangely chic slanted-roof passenger terminal, designed by Malaysian architect HinTan, this is face Albania wants to show the world. And in this case, the face is foreign. Since 2005, Mother Teresa, as the airport is affectionately known, has been run by Tirana Airport Partners, a private consortium of German and US investors. Given Albania's traditionally paranoid response to anything non-Albania, this is all good. Last year, British Airways landed there for the first time. For the first six months of 2007, passenger traffic rose 22 per cent and cargo traffic by 37 per cent.

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