Fraport

The issue of first-aid services is threatening to further delay the delivery date of 14 regional airports to contractor Fraport Greece, currently set for mid-March.

"In Romania and Serbia a new German investment is made every week," said the head of the German-Greek Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Michalis Maillis, deploring the unwelcoming conditions for investments in Greece.

The Infrastructure Ministry has bowed to pressure from the Fraport-led consortium and confirmed on Tuesday that it is postponing the start of works on a new runway at Makedonia Airport in Thessaloniki, northern Greece.

The Fraport-led consortium's threat to abandon the operation of 14 regional airports in Greece is forcing the government to postpone works to upgrade Makedonia Airport.

Greece's 14 regional airports will be delivered to Germany's Fraport by mid-February, the country's privatization agency (TAIPED) chief said on Friday.

Stergios Pitsiorlas also said that there was strong interest for a majority stake in Greece's second biggest port, Thessaloniki Port, and that binding bids were expected in January.

Fraport has said that it intends to increase passenger traffic at Thessaloniki's Makedonia airport by 48 percent in the next decade, after 5.3 million passengers passed through Greece's second-largest airport last year.

"Thessaloniki is taking off," Fraport Greece said on Wednesday while presenting its plans for the biggest of the 14 airports it has leased in the country.

Fraport Greece will implement investments of 400 million euros at the 14 regional airports it has leased in the next four years, the company's executive director of commercial and business development, George Vilos, told a Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) conference earlier this week.

Fraport group head Stefan Schulte has pledged investments of over 1 billion euros and staff hirings at the 14 regional airports whose management has been undertaken by the consortium led by the German firm.

Speaking on Skai TV on Tuesday night, Schulte also appeared optimistic both about Fraport's investment in Greece and the country's eurozone membership.

Parliament will approve the concession contracts for the 14 regional airports to be operated and upgraded by the Fraport-led consortium just after Easter, and definitely before the completion of the bailout review.

Greece is to sell its biggest port Piraeus Port Authority to shipping group China COSCO Shipping Corporation, marking the second major privatization for the country since late last year.