Air Albania, 105 million dollars in losses and debts

2025-03-21 21:05:57Biznes SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Air Albania, 105 million dollars in losses and debts
Air Albania

In 2018, the Council of Ministers approved the decision "On determining the procedures for the creation of the Air Albania company", which sanctioned that the company would operate in the field of air transport and would have as partners the public company Albcontrol as a representative of the interests of the Albanian state and the other two companies Turkish Airlines with Turkish capital and MDN Investiment with Albanian capital, owned by businessman Sinan Idrizi.

The decision determined that Albcontrol, together with the other Albanian partner, had to own no less than 51% of the company's capital, in order for the company to have the Albanian identity promised by the prime minister.

And so it happened.

In September 2018, the government approved the act of establishment of the company Air Albania, where 49% of the shares were owned by Turkish Airlines, 41% by MDN Investimet and only 10% by Albcontrol. The selection of Turkish Airlines and MDN Investimet was carried out without competition, because everything was predetermined in 2017, when Prime Minister Edi Rama hosted a meeting with the executive director of the Turkish airline, where the two publicly announced the project for the creation of Air Albania.

The true interests of Prime Minister Edi Rama and the question of why he chose the non-competitive procedure to make Turkish Airlines a shareholder began to receive answers a few months later, when the prime minister was filmed traveling on a charter plane with the code TC-ANA, the same plane that has served as Turkey's government plane for years. The super-luxury aircraft has several separate spaces for a single person, a bar, a restaurant, relaxing armchairs, a bedroom and a luxurious bathroom.

 After this show, investigative media published an agreement between Air Albania and the Directorate of Government Services, where the latter undertook to pay the prime minister's travel expenses, based on the request made by the cabinet and the protocol office. However, in the public records of the state treasury, which reflect all payments that state institutions make to third parties, there is no indication that the Directorate of Government Services has made any payments to Air Albania.

In short, the agreement with the government services directorate was all a lie, while Albanians still do not know who financed the prime minister's trips. The suspicions are that the prime minister's charter trips were financed partly by clients who purchased and paid for Air Albania tickets and partly by the private company Turkish Airlines, with the special care of Turkish President Erdogan.

Meanwhile, Air Albania, since its establishment until today, has not made its financial balance sheets public at any time. But even the Albanian partners, such as Albcontrol and MDN Investimet, have not made the financial data of this company public. Likewise, the Civil Aviation Authority, although it has the responsibility, has not monitored the financial health of Air Albania.

Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines has made public all of Air Albania's losses and liabilities from 2019-2024, which results in a total of $105 million in losses and debts of the Albanian company for Turkish Airlines alone./ Taken from the Piranjat show


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