Piervittorio Farabbi, chief operating officer of Tirana International Airport (TIA), the operator at Albania’s main airport, said on Monday the company is working to expand the airport terminal’s area to 40,000 square meters.

The terminal currently occupies an area of around 14,500 square meters, infrastructure minister Belinda Balluku said in June.

The company expects passenger numbers to exceed 10 million in 2024, and to accommodate the increased traffic, it is carrying out various expansions in different areas of the airport, including the airplane runway, parking areas, and taxiways, Farabbi is seen saying in a LinkedIn video posted by TIA.

In February, Farabbi told local media that the Tirana airport operator had decided to increase its planned investment in the airport through 2040 by 40%, to 140 million euro ($154.9 million). The investment will also finance the construction of a new airstrip to introduce intercontinental flights. In 2023, the airport of Tirana served 7.26 million passengers, 40% more than in 2022.

Furthermore, Prime Minister Edi Rama shared on Monday the figures of tourists who entered Tirana International Airport in August.

Rama emphasized that every optimistic forecast was exceeded, with 1.25 million passengers or 368,456 (41%) more than last August.

Rama underlined that the January-August 2024 period registered a total of 7.23 million passengers who entered TIA alone, whereas, in the same period last year, their number was 4.6 million. This balance speaks of a 56% increase in the current year, Rama emphasized.

The PM added that this year's novelty is nearly 4,000 passengers from Japan, another 4,000 from New Zealand, almost 20,000 from Australia, and 35,000 from Canada.