Petersburger Dialog 2009: Prof. Bender Signs Mo...

FRANKFURT and MUNICH, Germany, July 16 /PRNewswire/ --     The chairman of the 
board of Fraport AG, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Bender, and
the Governor of the city of St. Petersburg, Valentina Matvienko, today signed
a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the Petersburger Dialog 2009 in
Munich, in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Russian
president Dmitri Medvedev. The declaration of intent expresses the efforts of
the city of St. Petersburg and Fraport AG, to bring a successful conclusion
to the negotiations concerning the concession contract for the development,
modernisation and operation of the Pulkovo airport facilities.



    This gives Fraport AG the best chances of taking over responsibility for
the operation of Russia's fourth largest airport, Pulkovo, from 2010. The
city of St. Petersburg, the current owner and operator of Pulkovo airport,
named the "Northern Capital Gateway" consortium, in which Fraport holds a
35.5 percent stake, as the preferred bidder at the end of June, after an
international call for tenders. "The signature of the MoU is another clear
signal, which makes me confident, that the Fraport consortium will be awarded
the contract in the end, after the final negotiations", said Fraport director
Prof. Bender. "We want to put our worldwide recognised expertise to work to
make Pulkovo airport the main transport node in one of the best-loved Russian
tourist areas and to build on and operate the continually growing Russian air
travel market. The signature of the memorandum forms a solid basis for
successful cooperation between the companies within our consortium and the
city of St. Petersburg."



    The concession contract for the development, modernisation and operation
of the airport in Russia's second largest metropolis is set to be signed by
the end of the year and will run for 30 years. The first phase of the
concession essentially consists of the construction of a new passenger
terminal, the expansion of the apron, property development on the adjacent
airport area and the modernisation of the existing infrastructure.



    Pulkovo airport handled 7.1 million passengers in 2008, making it
Russia's fourth biggest airport. It has showed continuous growth in passenger
numbers over the last few years. Facilities include two independent takeoff
and landing runways and both a national and international passenger terminal.




    Printable images of Frankfurt airport and Fraport AG are available on the
internet to download free of charge from http://www.fraport.de, menu heading
"Press", sub-menu heading.



    We can also offer television editors free footage material to download
from http://fraport.cms-gomex.com.



    
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