Currently, Mother Teresa Airport in Tirana is Albania’s only point of air entry.

“Flight traffic has increased and will continue to do so for two reasons. Firstly, Albania’s success in managing its airspace and secondly, our strategic location,” says Arben Xhiku, General Director of the National Air Traffic Authority (NATA).

This increase in traffic is also a result of Albania’s expanding political and economic relations. At the forefront of it all is NATA which, in order to meet tomorrow’s challenges, has embarked on two grounbreaking plans. The first is the Master Air Traffic Management Plan, aimed at modernizing Albania’s air traffic system by 2010.

The other is the National Airspace Modernization Program (NAMP), an Albania-U.S.-Europe partnership that first took flight in 2001. Two years later a $50 million contract was signed with Lockheed Martin to help Albania establish radar control capabilities for the 2004 Athens Olympics, install new navigation equipment and construct a new airport tower and traffic control center.

The new system will triple capacity for flights over Albania, decrease flight times for airlines flying between northwestern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean and provide Albania with self-sustaining over-flight revenues. This project will also allow NATA to improve safety by using the latest technology.

With European traffic expected to triple in the next two decades, Albania must take steps towards modernization for the sector’s economic development. The country’s international airport in Rinas, which currently sees 750,000 passengers per year, will be able to welcome 1.5 million by 2010 and is looking to become a southeastern European air-traffic hub. A growing list of companies fly to Albania including Olympic Airlines, AIitalia and British Airways.

According to Mr. Xhike, “NATA is European in every sense of the word”, and as Albania plays a key role in stepping up services and in European air traffic, it is very much a modern truth.