Early development

The airport was constructed from 1955 to 1957. Tirana had commercial airline services before. Domestic aviation started in 1926 when German airline Adria-Aero-Lloyd obtained a monopoly for domestic air routes in the country and began servicing Tirana, Shkodër, Korçë and Vlorë. These operations proved unprofitable, and the airline sold its rights to Italian company Ala Littoria which opened regular routes in 1935 between Tirana to Shkodër, Kukës, Peshkopia, Kuçova, Vlorë, and Gjirokastra.^[10] In 1938, the Yugoslav carrier Aeroput introduced regular commercial flights linking Tirana with Belgrade, Serbia, with a landing in Dubrovnik, Croatia.^[11]

After the Second World War and installation of an isolationist communist regime in Albania, air transportation was rare. From 1944 to 1948, there was a service to Belgrade, but after the break of relations with Yugoslavia, until 1953, there was only a twice-a-month connection to Budapest operated by Soviet-Hungarian company Maszovlet.^[10] From 1953 to 1955, there was no air service, until February 1955 when a route to Moscow was inaugurated, followed thereafter to other Eastern-European capitals. In the 1970s, Tirana was one of the first European cities to be served by China's CAAC Airlines, with a weekly flight to Beijing via Bucharest and Tehran. In the late 1980s, there were six airlines flying to Tirana, with a total of nine round-trips per week.^[10]

With the collapse of communism in Albania in 1991 and subsequent liberalisation of travel restrictions abroad for Albanians, the number of airlines operating at the airport increased rapidly. In 1999, there were 8,249 flights and 356,823 passengers, seven times more than in 1991.^[10]

Contemporary

The air traffic equipment and facilities of the airport have been heavily modernised, following investments by Tirana International Airport SHPK, a consortium led by Hochtief AirPort. Hochtief assumed management of the airport on 23 April 2005, for a 20-year concession period.^[12]

The concession included the construction of a completely new passenger terminal and various infrastructure improvements, among them the construction of a new access road, new parking lots, and a bridge over the old airport access road.^[13] The expansion resulted in an increased number of passengers per annum, estimated at 1.5 million passengers for 2009.^[14][15] The number of passengers effectively increased to more than 1.5 million in 2010.^[16]

The terminal building and its second expansion, the cargo building, its landscaping, and its carpark canopies were designed by Malaysian architect Hin Tan of Hintan.^[17]

In December 2016, the Airport announced that it served 2 million passengers during 2016, reaching its second milestone.^[18]

The airport announced over 7.2 million passengers for 2023, exceeding their projections predictions for that year. This statistics marks a substantial increase of 40% compared to the previous year (2022) and 117% compared to the year 2019, solidifying TIA's position as a key player in the regional aviation industry.

Traffic

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Annual passenger traffic at TIA airport. See Wikidata query.

More information Year, Passengers ...

Year	Passengers	Change	Aircraft Operations	Change	Cargo (metric tons)	Change
2005	785,000	20.77%	15,400	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.
2006	906,103	15.43%	15,856	2.96%	2,435	N.A.
2007	1,105,770	22.04%	18,258	15.15%	3,832	57.37%
2008	1,267,041	14.58%	19,194	5.13%	2,497	34.84%
2009	1,394,688	10.07%	20,064	4.53%	2,265	9.29%
2010	1,536,822	10.19%	20,768	3.51%	2,355	3.97%
2011	1,817,073	18.24%	22,988	10.69%	2,656	12.78%
2012	1,665,331	8.35%	20,528	10.70%	1,875	29.41%
2013	1,757,342	5.53%	19,942	2.85%	2,164	15.41%
2014	1,810,305	3.02%	17,928	3.02%	2,324	13.53%
2015	1,997,044	10.3%	20,876	16.4%	2,229	4.1%
2016	2,195,100	9.9%	22,352	7.1%	2,200	1%
2017[85]	2,630,338	19.8%	24,336	9%	2,266	3%
2018[86]	2,947,172	12%	25,462	3%	2,245	0.9%
2019[87]	3,338,147	13.3%	28,695	12.5%	2,372	5.7%
2020[88]	1,310,614	60,7%	15,280	46,8%	1,796.8	24.3%
2021[89]	2,923,533	123.1%	26,152	73%	1,983	10.4%
2022[90]	5,198,550	77.8%	38,517	47.3%	2,045	3.1%
2023[91]	7,257,662	39.6%	51,050	32.5%	1,953	4.5%
2024 (31.03)[92]	1,910,616	63.9%	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

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Busiest routes

More information Rank, Destination ...

Most frequent routes at Tirana Airport (2023^[93])

Rank	Destination	Airport(s)	Number of Passengers	Top carriers
1	London	LHR, LTN, STN	582,742	British Airways, Ryanair, Wizz Air
2	Milan	MXP	390,976	Air Albania, Wizz Air
3	Rome	CIA, FCO	373,284	ITA Airways, Ryanair, Wizz Air
4	Bergamo	BGY	363,300	Ryanair, Wizz Air
5	Pisa	PSA	322,971	Air Albania, Ryanair, Wizz Air
6	Istanbul	IST, SAW	321,661	Air Albania, Pegasus Airlines
7	Bologna	BLQ	310,583	Ryanair, Wizz Air
8	Athens	ATH	266,203	Aegean Airlines, Wizz Air
9	Vienna	VIE	240,408	Austrian Airlines, Ryanair, Wizz Air
10	Verona	VRN	217,611	Air Albania, Wizz Air

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More information Rank, Destination ...

Most frequent routes by country at Tirana Airport (2023^[93])

Rank	Destination	Number of Passengers
1	Italy	3,171,204
2	Germany	953,815
3	United Kingdom	596,294
4	Turkey	415,513
5	Poland	337,187
6	Greece	285,147
7	Austria	240,408
8	France	226,126
9	Spain	176,661
10	Belgium	175,856

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Top carriers

More information Rank, Carrier ...

Top carriers by market share at Tirana Airport (2023^[94])

Rank	Carrier	Market share
1	Wizz Air	61%
2	Air Albania	7%
3	Albawings	5%
4	Lufthansa	4%
5	Austrian Airlines	3%

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Bus

An airport bus, located outside Arrivals terminal, leaves on the hour every hour (6am to 2am), to the city centre, and the trip takes around 30 minutes.^[95] The shuttle runs an hourly service between the Airport and the back of the Opera building in the centre of Tirana.

Rail

A new electrified light rail train line is being built between Tirana and Durres with a link to Tirana Airport planned to be completed by 2024–25.^[96]