Bulgaria Cancels Tender for Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport Concession
Bulgaria's government said it canceled a tender procedure to award a 35-year concession for the Gorna Oryahovitsa airport, in the north of the country.
The tender was canceled because it attracted no bidders, the government said in a statement, following a regular weekly meeting on Wednesday.
The bidding deadline was December 3.
Eligible bidders were required to have registered capital of at least 1.0 million euro ($1.3 million), assets of no less than 5.0 million euro, and income from civil airport operations in at least one of the last 10 years amounting to or higher than 3.0 million euro. The concessionaire was also required to have at least one year of experience in managing and operating a civil airport with an annual passenger traffic exceeding 200,000 and a cargo volume of more than 10,000 tonnes per year.
The Gorna Oryahovitsa airport has the capacity to serve all of central and northern Bulgaria. Despite the economic crisis and the stalled concession procedure, it posted a 20% increase in flights last year, news daily Trud (www.trud.bg) reported in the beginning of 2012, speculating on an unnamed Canadian company interested in the airport's concession.