Conference: "Airports as an engines of the economic recovery"

Airports in the Region as an engines of the economic recovery, as the issue at the third Conference of the Association of Small and Medium-sized Airports (ACI-Europe SMAG) which held on March, 15th to 17th at the Hilton Hotel in Dubrovnik, while the Dubrovnik Airport  was host, it's announced today from the Dubrovnik airport.

The conference gathered around 150 participants, mostly of the directors of the European airports, whom were welcomed by Jure Saric, the director in the Directorate of the Air Traffic in the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure.

Conference participants stressed out the crucial role of the regional airports in the recovery process of the economy. Global crisis influenced the decline in airport traffic and slowed their further growth, but there are signs of the slow recovery, especially in the freight transport, while the recovery of passenger traffic associated with by adjusting price lists of the airport services, and by the development of the low cost models.

At the opening of the conference Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe, said that need and importance of maintaining the competitive position of airports in terms of the cost management, which requires a holistic approach and cooperation with between the airports, the airlines, and also with the air traffic control authorities.

Oli Sundin, president of the SMAG's said that every region of the Europe, as well as any airport, is specific, and therefore it is necessary to have solutions that are adapted to their differences, because the uniform regulations are restricting the development of the airports.

Given that the European Union regulates the lawful operations of the airports within the European environment, which directly affects to the cost and efficiency of the functioning of the airports, it was concluded that regional airports should be represented with their attitudes toward the regulators in the EU institutions.

Therefore, the representatives of the  SMAG's Group in the future will have to grant the seats in all professional bodies, associations of the Europe's airports which directly communicate with the European Commission and European Council.

Also, due to the direct communication with the Association of the European Regions was proposed to rename the Association into the "Forum of the Regional Airports",so as to achieve more easily understanding of the interests of the regional airports to the relevant political bodies of the EU.

Association SMAG (Small & Medium Size Airport Action Group) was founded by the umbrella association of the European airports - ACI Europe (Airport Council International Europe) with the aim of linking small and medium-sized European airports to the 5 million passengers.