The County Council of Braşov will lease the Braşov-Ghimbav International Airport

• The Executive of the County Council has decided not to resort to investing on its own or to a public-private partnership to accomplish the second stage of the investment objective

The authorities of Braşov have decided to award the leasing of the second phase of the Braşov - Ghimbav international through a call for tenders, thus dropping the plan for the County Council to build the airport on its own or to create a public-private partnership. "We will find an investor which will finance, plan and build the airport, as well as operate it for a period to be established through the negotiations which will be part of the call for tenders", the vice-president of the County Council of Braşov, Mihai Pascu, said. The initial intention of the County Council was for the running of the airport to be leased to the investor for a period of 25 years.

Last week, the Executive has asked the members of the county institutions to empower and choose "the optimal solution for achieving the 2nd stage of the investment in the < Braşov - Ghimbav International Airport > project".

In mid-November, after more than five months from the time the call-for tenders was held, the contract for the designing and the execution of the Braşov-Ghimbav international airport was signed. According to the contract, the designing and the construction of the runway (which will have a length of 2,850 meters and a width of 45 meters) should take 12 months.

According to the feasibility study of the project made by Mott McDonald, in the first year of operation, the airport of Braşov would have traffic of 300,000 passengers, and it would only exceed 1 million passengers in its eighth year of operation. The passenger traffic would continue to increase to over two million in the 25th year of operation. According to the studies, in the 25 years of operation, the airport will have a total traffic of 34,367,000 passengers.

According to the impact study ordered by the County Council in the Braşov - Harghita - Covasna - the resorts of the Valea Prahovei area, the waiting rate of the airport is more than 92%. "We believe that the airport will generate a cash-flow of about 2.4 billion Euros in the first eight years of operation -and nearly 10,000 jobs created directly and indirectly", sources of the county administration said.