Rinas Airport is robbing citizens of flights

In addition to the monopoly of international flights, another monopoly operates at Rinas Airport. This is the supply of fuel aircraft, which has considerable impact on the ticket price.

Since the beginning of the Youth concession, the monopoly of this service has been held by the company “Air. BP Albania”, under an agreement bound between it and the airport concession. Top Channel releases “Air balances BP Albania” in the last two years available, 2015-2016. In both years, they say, the company has a gross profit rate ranging from 50 to 52 percent when the average fuel market ranges from 2 to 7 percent.

But that is not the only fact. Top Channel publishes a confidential investigation conducted by experts at the Competition Authority, which has compared the price of selling jet fuel to the entity to the one at the airport in neighbouring countries. According to the investigation, the price of fuels in Rinas is 2 to 3 times higher than that at several Italian airports.

Fuel is the most important voice in the cost of flights, making it more than 30 percent of the total cost of flying tickets. This causes Albanian citizens only high fuel prices to pay millions of euros a year to pay abusive fees to fly.

All facts revealed by the investigation of competition experts were handed over to the Competition Authority Commission. But strangely, in July of last year, the Competition Commission concluded the investigation not only with no corrective measures to protect citizens from abusive tariffs, but also without any penalty for “Air BP”, despite shocking facts.