Turkey’s TAV qualifies to bid for LaGuardia airport tender

ISTANBUL - Reuters

This file photo shows a Southwest Airlines flight at LaGuardia Airport in the Queens borough of New York City. Turkish airport operator TAV Airports said today it had qualified to bid for the rights to operate and reconstruct New York’s iconic LaGuardia airport, as part of a consortium. Andy Jacobsohn/AFP photo

Turkish airport operator TAV Airports said today it had qualified to bid for the rights to operate and reconstruct New York’s iconic LaGuardia airport, as part of a consortium.

The consortium includes TAV shareholder Aeroports de Paris, Goldman Sachs infrastructure units and Tutor Perini Corp.

LaGuardia airport served 26 million passengers in 2012, TAV said in its statement to the Borsa Istanbul.

TAV Airports had announced its interest in operating the $3.6 billion Central Terminal Building of New York’s LaGuardia Airport by the middle of January.

The existing central terminal of LaGuardia, which serves only domestic flights, opened to the public in 1964 and was designed to handle 8 million passengers a year. However, it soon became too small for the amount of air traffic it faced, accommodating 24.1 million passengers in 2011.

The aging, congested central terminal has long been projected to be replaced by a new and wider one, particularly after Delta Airlines announced plans to open a new domestic hub at the airport in 2011.

As the leading airport operator in Turkey, TAV operates the Istanbul Atatürk, Ankara, Izmir and Antalya Airports in Turkey, as well as others in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Macedonia, Georgia and Latvia.