AVIACENTER NEWS

As part of a road show in Moscow, several meetings with potential investors of the new passenger terminal and other ground infrastructure of the main air harbor of Kamchatka took place. 

The project of airport development was presented to the investors by Yury Zubar, the Deputy Chairman of the Government of Kamchatka region. The meetings involved the government of Kamchatka region, the management of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky airport and the Center for the Strategic Development in Civil Aviation (AVIACENTER), whose specialists have developed the master-plan, financial and legal models, investment project implementation strategy. The representatives of several large investment groups, including Renova, Novaport, Basic Element and other groups, received detailed information on business terms, construction stages and volumes of anticipated investments.

Presenting the project, Yury Zubar mentioned that over the recent years a cutting-edge aerodrome was built in Kamchatka, its state-of-the-art runway, the newest in Russia, is capable of accepting aircraft of almost any type.  But regardless of a constantly growing passenger flow, its growth is limited by the absence of a passenger terminal that could handle the increased number of passengers.

At the first stage of an investment project AVIACENTER conducted technical, legal and financial audit of the airport, developed its long-term development strategy, including route development strategy and air traffic forecast.  Besides, the specialists of the center prepared a professional master-plan, developed the project's financial model, and identified the optimal legal scheme for its implementation on the principles of a public-private partnership. On the basis of pre-project analysis, they prepared a construction project for a new passenger terminal, which has already been approved by Glavgosexpertiza (Russian State Expert Evaluation Department). Currently preparations are made for an investment tender that will determine the investment company on a competitive basis.

Measured in 2016 rubles, the cost of phase one construction of the international terminal is 3.1 billion rubles. As a whole, the development project for the main air gate of Kamchatka anticipates to attract up to 9.4 billion of rubles in investments (6.9 billion rubles before 2025, 2.5 billion rubles before 2035). 
The project includes the construction of a passenger terminal over 24 thousand square meters in area, allowing for location of difference services, required for handling domestic and international flights.  The project also includes the development of the land side, construction of new and modernization of existing service area facilities.

The project implementation anticipates several investments from the federal and regional budgets.  For example, the government of Kamchatka region is ready to co-invest part of the costs, directing up to 1.3 billion rubles to the construction of roads and utility lines. The airport is planned to enjoy tax advantages and other preferences, provided by the Free port regulations. 

According to AVIACENTER's preliminary calculations, the project's discounted payback period for the base scenario is about 15 years. Describing the results of the route network development of the main airport in the peninsula, Anton Koren, the CEO of AVIACENTER stressed that Kamchatka has a strong potential of the development of international tourist traffic: charter flights to Seoul, Hong Kong, Guam, Nha Trang and other cities, and inbound tourism from the cities of South-East Asia, Europe and other regions of the world. 
"We are witnessing a stable growth of inbound tourist passenger flow.  For example, just in 2015 Kamchatka was visited by 180 thousand tourists, which is three times more than in 2014. According to our forecast and the base development scenario, by 2025 the airport's passenger turnover will increase from the current level of 600 thousand to 1.25 million people per year in 2025 and to 1.77 million people per year in 2035", said Anton Koren.

After discussing the legal and financial aspects of the project implementation, the potential investors centered around their vision of increasing the airport profitability.

"We have met professionals, experienced in construction and operations of airports around the country. Many questions were asked during the meeting, which shows interest in our project, - Yury Zubar said after the meetings.  - We still have much to do to conduct the investment tender, but most importantly, Kamchatka will get a comfortable modern airport"

It should be mentioned that the new passenger terminal building will replace the existing one. After the completion of the phase one of the construction, the international terminal will handle 400 passengers per hour (200 pax/hour for outbound domestic routes and 200 pax/hour on international ones), and the same number of arriving passengers. International requirements for quality passenger service were met during project design.

The investment project of PPP development of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky international airport has been prepared taking into consideration all the necessary private-public partnership project preparation stages.