TAV invests $65m for Tbilisi runway
Abu Dhabi MTC consortium partner initialises $65m investment
TAV Airports will spend $65m to refurbish the Tbilisi runway.
TAV Georgia, a local subsidiary of Turkish TAV Airports, has announced a $65m investment in the its renovation and extension of Tbilisi Airport’s second runway, specifically for large aircraft.
The two year project will see TAV Georgia invest and build the new infrastructure in accordance with international aviation standards category F, which means it is able to accept aircraft as big as the Airbus A380-800, Boeing 748-8F and Antonov 225.
In addition, the agreement, signed earlier this month, extends the current operational rights of TAV Georgia by 10 years and 9 months, to 2037.
“We are very happy to be in Georgia through the Tbilisi and Batumi airports that we currently operate in the country,” said Sani Sener, TAV Airports president and CEO.
“We are confident that we will be making a considerable contribution to the local economy in a very short period of time and strengthening the existing cooperation between the two countries through the work and investments we realize. We are taking our cooperation one step further with this investment that we are making in Georgia which has now become the Caucasian’s center of attraction. We believe that we are a true representative of our country as a respectable global corporation with the know-how we have acquired in the aviation sector,” Sener added.
Following the build-operate-transfer tenders it has won, TAV Airports has undertaken the operations of Tbilisi and Batumi Airports in 2005 and 2005 respectively. Batumi Airport is a first in the region in terms of being used as a shared facility between Georgia and Turkey. Direct flights have been launch between the two countries after the undertaking of the operation by TAV Airports.
TAV Airports is one of three consortium partners recently appointed to the Abu Dhabi Mid-field Terminal Complex.
“TAV has been providing added value to Georgia since the day it started operating in our country,” commented Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakasvili, at the project’s launch ceremony.
“It fulfilled every commitment it made in terms of investments. It gained Georgia Tbilisi and Batumi Airports. With this new runway, it is now making a significant investment to help Tbilisi Airport to become a regional hub,” Saakasvili added.
