WEEKLY REVIEW

Schwechat declares war on Bratislava

If we are not going to get the Bratislava airport, at least we are going to wreck it in a competition fight. This was roughly the reaction of Schwechat, an unsuccessful bidder for a 66 percent stake in the M. R. Štefánik airport, following Wednesday’s governmental decision that it was withdrawing from the privatization contract. Schwechat, in a consortium with the Austrian Raiffeisen Zentralbank and the Penta investment group, had won a tender for a majority share in the Bratislava and Košice airport.

For example, the Austrians wish to remove the Vienna airport arrangement facility directly in Bratislava. Apart from this, they would provide free bus transportation for travelers directly to Schwechat, and possibly free Slovak cars from parking charges at their airport. This could draw customers away from the rapidly-expanding Štefánik. August 18

Number of passangers (million)

Bratislava Schwechat

January-June 2005 0,49 7,3

July-December 2005 0,83 8,3

January-June 2006 0,82 7,9

Source: Airports

Not only is the new Slovak government threatened by a court challenge from the TwoOne consortium around the halted privatization of Bratislava’s airport, the Austrian Mobilkom company is mobilizing against the officials due to its defeat in the tender for a third mobile telephone operator in Slovakia. As the Austrian daily Die Presse reported, the winner of the selection proceedings was the Spanish Telefónica company.

Mobilkom, t...

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