The flight time from Kosovo to the European Union countries and vice versa will be shortened, in case of the opening of the air corridor with Albania.
With the shortening of the time - up to 30 minutes for a round trip - the price of tickets will also be reduced, says Albion Idrizi, master of aviation, for Radio Free Europe.
Currently, he says, the average price of a one-way ticket from Kosovo to all EU countries is 140 euros. With the shortening of the flight, this price can drop up to 6 percent, or 8 euros, says Idrizi, an entrepreneur in the field of travel and tourism in Croatia and Kosovo.
Since the post-war period, in 1999, flights to and from the Pristina International Airport are carried out only through the air corridor that connects Kosovo with North Macedonia.
The agreement with Albania, to use the air corridor of this country, was reached in 2020.
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This agreement provided for the opening of two air coordination points, Kukad and Arbër, but it was never implemented.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Kosovo (CAA), which manages the country's low airspace, the agreement has not been implemented due to some technical procedures that had to be approved by Albania and the NATO mission in Kosovo, KFOR.
Bujar Ejupi, general director of CAA, says that KFOR, this month, has given permission for the use of the Kukad and Arbër points, and that they are expected to be put into use "soon".
KFOR, which is responsible for the security of Kosovo's airspace, has confirmed that "it has approved the possibility of opening air corridors between Kosovo and Albania", but does not provide many details.
"The Kukad and Arbër points are in the Albanian territory, so the aviation institutions of that country are the authorities responsible for the planning and management of that airspace", says the KFOR statement.
The National Air Traffic Agency of Albania, Albcontrol, has not given an answer as to what are the reasons for the non-planning of flights through Kukadi and Arbër until now and when exactly these two points are expected to be put into use.
The European Organization for the Safety of Navigation, Eurocontrol, has said "the responsibility for creating and announcing navigation points belongs to the relevant state [in this case Albania] and not to Eurocontrol".
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Ejupi, from the CAA, expects that the two coordination points, Kukad and Arbër, will soon be marked on the Eurocontrol maps, but does not give any exact date.
After the finalization of this procedure, he believes that all airlines operating in the Kosovo market will use these two points. /REL
