Direct flight Tirana–Toronto, Albania enters the map of transatlantic flights
The first Transatlantic flight of the direct route with Canada, Tirana - Toronto, and vice versa, arrived at Tirana International Airport today, marking a historic achievement for the airport and the aviation sector in Albania. The passengers of this flight were welcomed with a symbolic ceremony at Tirana International Airport, attended by the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Enea Karakaçi, airport managers, airline representatives and other guests.
The ceremony continued inside the airport premises with the participation of Prime Minister Rama, who described the launch of direct flights with Canada as a long-awaited development and an indicator of the transformation of the civil aviation sector in Albania.
Prime Minister Edi Rama's speech at the ceremony:
I believe that many things were said and it is not appropriate to repeat them, to prolong this meeting which is of great importance due to the fact that, for the first time, Albania becomes part of the map of Transoceanic flights, which until yesterday would have been a completely wild fantasy, while today it is a reality, thanks precisely to the landing in Tirana, at Rinas airport, of the first plane from Canada, namely from Toronto, which, as the company representative said, was full. In the meantime, I say to the company representative what I have said to all those who, when they came with their lines to Albania, started once a week, twice a week, out of concern for costs and fear of not making a profit: “Do not hesitate at all, because Albanians are without a doubt the first in two things: in mobile messages and airplane flights”. And, without a doubt, your line will be very successful. But now, for us, this is something that happened and belongs to the past, even though the past is only this morning, while our strategic objective is to soon have the other direct line, the one with the United States.
Considerable progress has been made in relation to this objective as well, and I can say that we are much closer to finalization than we could have imagined just a few years ago.
The data of Tirana Airport is extraordinary. Tirana Airport has been holding the first place in Europe for the increase in the number of passengers for several years and the changed figure of seven or nine years, from 2016 to 2025, is enough to understand what a dizzying growth has occurred with Tirana Airport.
In 2016, when a new phase in the joint work to further transform the airport and modernize our civil aviation began, there were only 22,000 flights per year for 2.2 million passengers. Less than 10 years later, the number of passengers reached 13.7 million and the number of flights 82,000, a figure that we predict will exceed 100,000 by the end of this decade and the beginning of the next.
Just as, on the other hand, it is not only the increase in the number of passengers, but also the improvement of the quality of service. Tirana Airport is one of the first airports in Europe to have taken the step of digitalizing check-in and check-out. Meanwhile, soon, right here, we will open a new chapter of the digital transformation of the airport and its further modernization: the chapter of digital gates, which will be gates where you will enter without any kind of control, if you are Albanian and if you have an Albanian biometric passport.
This will make it feel like home for all Albanian passengers entering Rinas Airport, and all information will be obtained through the Artificial Intelligence that this gate will have.
Of course, the idea is to start with domestic passengers and, immediately after that, to be joined by foreign passengers, which will be an extraordinary transformation in many aspects and especially in another aspect, which we often forget here in Albania, but which is a fundamental aspect for aviation: the aspect of airport security.
We are at a very important moment today, also due to the fact that Albania has already completed a new phase of transformation in tourism and must definitely enter another phase of transformation. Before coming here, I was looking at some data and a series of comparative figures, both with yesterday and with the region and beyond, and one of the graphs that I saw and that was very meaningful was the graph that shows how, arithmetically, we have reached exactly the moment when we should aim to open the chapter of high-end tourism, of tourism for the wealthy consumer, of tourism that brings more income to a much smaller number of people. And that graph shows best that the continuous increase in the number of tourists who are in the mass tourism category does not bring a continuous increase in income, but income starts and goes to another graph, to another, very, very slow growth trend. But, if we then compare the very slowly growing income with the very rapidly growing expenses, as a result of the rapid increase in the number of mass tourists, which means much more pressure on traffic, much more pressure on our cleaning system, much more pressure on waste processing, much more pressure on water and sewage systems and, of course, there is no question, much more overall pressure on the environment, then the calculation is very simple.
And it is a simple calculation for all those who fall prey to a seemingly right, but fundamentally completely wrong, thinking: “What do we need high-end tourism for? What do we need it for? What do we need resorts where the rich come, when we don’t have access to them?” In fact, the opposite is true. We need as many of them as possible, to have as much income for ourselves, to have as much income for the community, for the economy, for business and, of course, then for the state coffers.
So we are at this point: we will continue to bring more tourists, but what we are now very clear about how we should approach is to bring more income to Albanian families and to the common coffers of the Albanian state.
In closing, I would like to add that there is a professional and very clear projection, as well, for the challenge that we have ahead, which is the projection of the number of passengers that will potentially enter Albania in a decade from now and the number of flights that will need to respond to this number of passengers. This means that we need to continue to expand our civil aviation system.
Everyone is informed about some delays caused not by the state or any natural disaster, but by completely internal company reasons at Vlora airport. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy has taken the appropriate steps in this direction and our objective remains unwavering: that Vlora airport, another international airport with great potential, will definitely open and will not be a prey to disputes within the company.
We are in the final preparation phase to open the competition for the Gjirokastra airport, which will be different from Tirana and Vlora: a tourist and mainly seasonal airport. And, without a doubt, we have no reason to give up on the further development of the Kukes airport, even though, when it comes to airline agreements, they are private agreements that are developed at a level of interest of the companies and the airport itself.
And the last thing is that we started this task with only 6.5% of the Albanian population having access to aviation. So, only 6.5% of Albanians were traveling by plane or could take a plane when we started the task. Meanwhile, today as we speak, the figure has increased to nearly 40% of Albanians using the plane. It is the result of the opening of competition after the end of that previous and inherited concession, which made flying from and to Albania expensive, for the sake of truth, but without a doubt also thanks to the increase in Albanian incomes, which is a fact that we can discuss and can be discussed as desired, but which, like any fact, is incontrovertible if you refer to the data.
Thank you all and a special thank you to the Canadian ambassador.
I have no thanks for the company representatives. The company representative came here to make money, we also welcome him and, of course, that is very good for us, because the more the company earns, the more flights will increase. No thanks from me. You have not made any sacrifices, and you are even late, because you should have come earlier, but you are still ahead of those who will come later. I have thanks for the ambassador, who has made the way to get here. I want to thank all the airport employees, I thank all the security employees, I thank all the State Police employees who serve here at the airport. In all senses, I can say that even from the aspect of human relations, the airport is a different place. Not that there are not moments that are not sufficiently satisfactory in communication, but still, when you think that until yesterday you would come to Albania, enter the airport of your country and the police would look at you worse than the police at the airports of other countries, that they would not look at you well either, today I believe that we have achieved a historic success, because we have smiling police officers. Unimaginable until not many years ago.
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