Vienna Airport Considers Entering at Bratislava Airport

Operations at Bratislava Airport will be offered to interested operators. Vienna International Airport is highly interested, as substantial synergy effects could be generated. Bratislava Airport is about 60 kilometers off Vienna´s airport. Nevertheless, other acquisitions are not planned yet.

By contrast, Vienna International Airport considers selling its foreign interests. “In future, there will be no investments in foreign airports.” board member Julian Jäger said. Except the airport in Malta, past investments were not satisfying at all. Especially the acquisition of Kosice airport proved unsuccessful. Vienna International Airport holds a 66% stake in Kosice airport. Jäger does not exclude a sale of foreign airports. However, at the moment, the timing to sell assets is not quite optimal. Besides Kosice, Vienna International Airport owns a 25.1% stake in Friedrichshafen airport.

According to the board member Julian Jäger, the construction phase of the third landing rope will not begin before 2016. The start of operations is planned in 2021. Until then, capacities are sufficient, Jäger says. Bratislava may not replace a third landing rope, however.

According to the board member Günther Ofner, the current value of the controversial Skylink is € 728m. The project was massively criticized for the massive increase in costs. Annual costs of Skylink amount to € 40m in 2012 and € 80m in 2013.