TAV Macedonia appoints Nejat Kurt as a General Manager

TAV Macedonia, a subsidiary of TAV Airports, appoints Nejat Kurt as its new General Manager, effective as of 1st May 2023. Metin Batak, will be leaving his post as GM to be appointed as TAV Tunisia Executive Board Member, which operates Enfidha Hammamet and Monastir Airports. “During my tenure at TAV Macedonia, together with the whole managerial team, we have achieved a great success by tripling the number of passengers at both Macedonian airports, in the period between 2010 and 2019. When covid-19 crisis came we needed to tackle some of the biggest challenges in aviation that negatively affected both Macedonian airports – Skopje International Airport and Ohrid St.Paul the Apostle Airport. Together with our exceptional team of employees, my fellow managers and in close collaboration with our stakeholders, we led the recovery of Macedonian passenger traffic that begun in 2022. Despite all air travel obstacles, our staff kept providing an excellent passenger experience, thus we won the ASQ Award for Skopje Airport for 2022 and 2021. I’m confident that Skopje and Ohrid airports will continue with the passenger traffic recovery and it’ll contribute to the economic development of the country”, stated Metin Batak. “I’d like to express my gratitude to my colleague Metin Batak for his valued leadership contribution during the past years. Both of us are working on the Macedonian market since the entrance of TAV and we have stepped on the top-management positions before covid-19 crisis. Thus, we have jointly navigated the sailing of Skopje and Ohrid airports amid the biggest “storm” for aviation – covid-19crisis. We have closely cooperated and coped with every single challenge, investing our best efforts towards the recovery of passenger traffic, keeping motivations high in order to sustain our business model. Now, as we are riding at the positive wave of passenger traffic increase, my colleagues and myself will invest our best efforts to make this trend continue, especially now after a post pandemic period of change. We are focused as never before to continue to support, enhance and prioritize the passenger experience from both of our Airports while looking into the future and define our targets that we want to achieve next. We will further develop Skopje and Ohrid airports, transforming it into hub on the Balkans. With our personal extensive airport management experiences and our mother company - TAV Airports’ international know-how, we will follow global aviation trends and lead new projects, continue serving our customers in the best possible way”, stated Nejat Kurt, TAV Macedonia General Manager.   
Nejat Kurt is working in the aviation sector for 23 years and he has been part of TAV Macedonia top-management since TAV’s entrance to the Macedonian market. In 2008 he was assigned by TAV Airports as one of the expatriates who were managing the concession project in Macedonia. He worked at Skopje Airport for 2 years and in 2010 he became manager of Ohrid St.Paul the Apostle Airport. After 2 years, in 2012 he was appointed as Skopje Airport Manager, managing the overall airport operations in the Macedonian capital. In 2014, TAV Airports assigned Kurt as Transition Coordinator at Prince Mohammed Bin AbdulazizInternational Airport in Madinah, Saudi Arabia. There he organized the transition from old to the new airport terminal. Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz International Airport is the first airport that got privatized in Saudi Arabia.  In 2016, Kurt was assigned as the ORAT (Operational Readiness and Airport Transfer) Terminal and Landside Coordinator at Zagreb Airport in Croatia. He worked together with the French ADP group, to ensure successful airport transition and operation, until the construction of Zagreb Airport new terminal building was finished and the new terminal was put into function in 2017. In August 2017, Kurt was appointed as the Operations Coordinator for the transition of 3 airports that have been taken under concession from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by TAV Airports, followed by the role of Committee Chairman responsible for airport digitalization of Medina Airport in 2018. By the end of 2018, Kurt returned to Macedonia, as Airports Operations Coordinator, responsible for both Skopje and Ohrid overall airport operations. In the first quarter of 2019, Kurt was appointed as TAV Macedonia Deputy General Manager for Operations. Nejat Kurt is Turkish who was born and grew up in Germany. After finishing secondary school, he continued his higher education at The Tourism and Hotel Management Studies at Tekirdag University in Turkey. He graduated Political Science & Diplomacy at the American University of Europe in Skopje. Currently Kurt attends professional MBA in aviation management at the Austrian Danube University in Krems. He is AMPAP graduate and Holds the official title IAP "Airport Operations Professional" approved by ICAO and ACI.
Besides the Turkish language as his mother tongue, Kurt is fluent in English and in German. TAV Macedonia, the airport operator of Skopje International Airport and Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport finished the first four months of 2023, January – April, with 753.377 passengers at both Macedonian airports, which is an increase of 44% compared to the same period in 2022 and 8% increase compared to 2019 that is considered as a referent year in aviation. At the same time, the number of flights at both airports amounted to 6010, with a 35% annual increase and 4% increase compared to 2019.