"Three groups to bid for Turkish airport deal"

Monday, April 9, 2007

Three groups to bid for Turkish airport deal
By Ercan Ersoy 


ISTANBUL, (Reuters) - Three groups including Turkish and German players will
bid for a deal estimated to be worth up to $2.7 billion to operate and
expand Turkey's second busiest airport, company officials said on Monday. 

The winner of the tender, for which bids are due on Thursday, will manage
two international terminals in the Mediterranean tourist resort of Antalya
and also expand and run the domestic terminal. 

Newly listed TAV Airports Holding, which already runs Istanbul airport with
a $3 billion deal, said it will bid, as will Turkey's IC Holding in
partnership with Germany's Fraport. 

Turkey's Celebi Airport Services will bid either with Austria's Flughafen
Wien or with Singapore-based Changi Airport. 

Celebi has not said who its partners will be, but Flughafen Wien said last
week it was interested. 

Company sources said the deal could be worth $2.5 to $2.7 billion. Antalya
airport, which serves tourist locations on the Mediterranean coast, is
second after Istanbul in terms of passenger capacity and last year handled
14.6 million passengers. 

More than 90 percent of its passengers are connected to tourism, making it
dependent on the sector. 

The number of tourists visiting Turkey fell 6 percent in 2006, a year when
the country suffered from an outbreak of bird flu, a bombing campaign by
Kurdish separatists and violent reactions to cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammed. 

But this year has got off to a better start, with a 26 percent rise in
visitors in February.

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